Bjp Plays Hard To Get, Sees Uf-Cong Understanding

Some senior BJP leaders yesterday said they were convinced the Congress and the United Front would come to some understanding to save the Lok Sabha from being dissolved, even as the BJP officially painted a dismal picture, predicting a mid-term poll.

In order to create confusion in rival camps, the BJP yesterday also indicated that the partys final strategy for the Deve Gowda governments confidence vote on Aril 11 would be decided at the partys parliamentary party meeting scheduled on April 10.

BJP vice-president KL Sharma said the BJP would not support either the Congress or the United Front government but refused to commit that it would not abstain from voting to save the government from getting defeated on the floor of the house.

When repeatedly pressurised by newsmen to clarify the partys stand, he said the BJP will vote against the governments confidence vote. However, he said the situation is fluid and a final decision would be taken at the parliamentary party meeting.

Sharmas statement is to salvage the impression of finality created by party spokesperson Sushma Swarajs statement recently that the BJP would definitely vote against the confidence vote, a senior BJP leader said. The finality attached to Swarajs statement had reduced the partys manouevrability. Furthermore, the BJP wants to continue the confusion about its move so that the UF should compromise with the Congress, he said.

Sharma described the UF government as a patient on dialysis, and asserted that it would not survive long. Any other experiment of similar kind is going to be worse and more short-lived. Sharma said this in the context of the Congress president Sitaram Kesaris statement terming Deve Gowda as communal. The UF and the Congress are trying to force each other to climb down from their respective positions, he added.

On the statement of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Kanshi Ram that some political parties could abstain during the confidence vote to ensure the survivial of the Gowda government, Sharma said this had nothing to do with the BJP. He refused to comment when some newsmen pointed out to him that before articulating his views, Ram had recently met former Prime Minster Atal Behari Vajpayee at a dinner meeting of floor leaders of the BJP and its allies. However, some BJP leaders privately admitted that there is thus no need for the BJP to take a position unless the the Congress and the UF part ways, a BJP general secretary said.

Thackeray advises BJP against abstention

Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray has advised former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and other senior BJP leaders to desist either from making fresh bid for power at the Centre or to abstain from voting during the confidence motion.

Disclosing this to the Business Standard yesterday, a Shiv Sena MP said that Thackeray has strongly favoured a mid-term poll. our leader does not want the BJP to be a part of the game between the Congress and the UF, he said.

Shiv Sena leader Madhukar Sarpotdar has been meeting Vajpayee daily and had reportedly told him that no MP wanted a mid-term poll. Thackerays advise has come in this context.