Move For National Govt Led By Rao Or Vajpayee

Politics may be the art of the possible, but some backers of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao and backroom politicians close to BJP leader AB Vajpayee have been working on a highly improbable scheme over the past couple of days.

They want to try and put together a national government with one of these leaders at the head, if the Gowda government collapses without a compromise between the Congress and the United Front. They have been led to believe that President SD Sharma would be willing to instal a national government of this sort. Those who have indicated this to them apparently hope that Sharma could get a second term as President in July if such an arrangement were to work out.

These mainly low-profile backroom politicians calculated that, although many of the United Front constituents may stay out of such a government, the BJP and the Congress could participate in it, along with some other groups, as long as it was labelled a national government.

The group had a long meeting on Monday, which lasted into the early hours of Tuesday morning. Some politicians close to TMC President GK Moopanar were also present, perhaps to keep tabs on the discussions.

According to one of those present, the group first worked on the possibility of Vajpayee taking over as Prime Minister in a national government, since he has the best image among those they were considering. They thought Rao's support could be obtained on the promise that, instead of Sharma, he would be given the Presidentship in July.

That did not bear fruit since they said that Vajpayee would only consider it if at least a third of the ministerial berths were given to the BJP. That is proportionate to the BJP's strength in the Lok Sabha, but the others at the meeting wouldn't agree.

They then turned to the possibility of Rao becoming the Prime Minister in such an arrangement, but that was stymied by backers of the Congress' Lok Sabha floor leader Sharad Pawar. Without Pawar's backing, Rao would not be able to win the support of his own party.

Rao's backers were willing for Pawar to be the deputy Prime Minister under Rao, but Pawar's men argued that Pawar could be the deputy Prime Minister in a government led by Sitaram Kesari, HD Deve Gowda or GK Moopanar. Any of these would not need BJP participation, and would therefore be far more politically acceptable to the Congress rank and file.

Therefore, Pawar's men argued that he should be made the Prime Minister if he was to go along with this plan. That of course was not acceptable to the backers of either Rao or Vajpayee.