Bjp Leadership Losing Hope Against Cong Onslaught Confidence

Senior BJP leaders yesterday seemed downcast as the shadow of dissent in Chennai lengthened over the future of the Vajpayee government. Many of them acknowledged that its fall was imminent in a few days, and privately held that the Congress was determined this time to form an alternate government.

BJP President Kushabhau Thakre conceded that it was a "crisis" but said he hoped the government would survive. "It has survived many crises earlier. It will survive this also," he said. However, he added that one should always be ready for any eventuality.

The apparent failure - at least initially - of Vajpayee's emissaries in Chennai, Pramod Mahajan and George Fernandes, to persuade AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha to not withdraw support to the five-month old government, has forced BJP leaders to conclude that the crisis this time was serious.

 

Though Mahajan and Fernandes were to meet Jayalalitha again in the evening, party leaders here said that the talks were unlikely to yield positive results.

While Pramod and Fernandes were to return to the capital yesterday night, party vice-president Jana Krishnamurthy, who went to Chennai separately, is to return today. The BJP's strategy would be finalised after all three brief Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and other senior leaders.

The emissaries' brief, according to these leaders, was to persuade her that she could move amendments to the award when the agreement on sharing of Cauvery waters would come up before the Prime Minister, who heads the authority comprising four chief ministers.

The Congress has declared that it would take the initiative to form a government only if the Vajpayee government fell on its own, one BJP leader pointed out. The AIADMK's withdrawal would provide the Congress an opportunity to claim that it was not behind the government's fall, he said.

The prime motivation for the Congress to form a government is its fear that the Vajpayee government might get entrenched if it was allowed a longer spell, he held. The government's fall would give political mileage to the Congress in the forthcoming assembly elections, he added. Most party leaders held that Vajpayee would try to prove the government's majority in the Lok Sabha with the help of MPs belonging to the DMK and the TMC.