Cong, Didi stick to their guns, BJP in no hurry to pull trigger

BJP won't try to overthrow govt before Gujarat polls UPA's refusal to relent renders Friday deadline irrelevant Cong-ruled states to subsidise extra LPG

The cracks in the relationship between the Congress and the Trinamool Congress (TMC) became wider today, with TMC chief Mamata Banerjee demanding 24 subsidised LPG cylinders a year per family and declaring that her opposition to FDI in multi-brand retail was non-negotiable. But the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) claimed the government would be unaffected by the TMC’s exit — that it had 306 MPs when 272 was the number required for a majority.

“Dhamkabe na (I don’t threaten, don’t coerce),” Banerjee responded angrily at a press conference, presumably addressing the Congress as she refuted an earlier assertion by the finance minister that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had called Banerjee twice, the last time after she announced her decision to leave the UPA.

 

The government ruled out a rollback of decisions taken last week but by way of a palliative, party president Sonia Gandhi directed Congress-ruled states to provide three LPG cylinders to below poverty line families every year at state expense.

The UPA’s decision to stand firm was taken at a meeting of the core committee (comprising representatives from the party and government) and the discussions were later conveyed to a group of ministers by Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

Chidambaram explained to the core committee and later to the group the government had sent a message to the markets by taking corrective steps, as a result of which the rupee had appreciated from 55 a dollar to around 53. That had managed to shave Rs 50,000 crore off India’s fuel bill, he said.

With the government’s calm insistence on having its own way on policy decisions “because they were good for the country, although they might be bad for the (UPA) alliance” (as a minister put it), the TMC’s Friday deadline has become irrelevant. The UPA has reconciled itself to the fact that the TMC is out and is counting on the Samajwadi Party (SP) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). Party interlocutors are in touch with both. The BSP has postponed a decision on the UPA till October 9 but is not taking part in a bandh called for tomorrow. The SP will hold a meeting tomorrow. The BJP today said it would allow the government, even if it was in a minority, to continue till the Gujarat elections, due in November, were over. So, the BJP will neither seek a special session of Parliament nor move a no-confidence motion.