For Bjp, Buta Was The Most Dispensable

There is a sense of relief in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government now that the impasse created by AIADMK supremo J Jayalalitha has been resolved, at least for the time being.

Buta Singh, who was dropped as the Union minister for communications on Monday, was considered the most dispensable of the ministers whose removal Jayalalitha had demanded. The reasoning is that the loss of Buta Singhs support to the government has already been compensated by the BJPs victory in Udhampur where chief of the partys Jammu and Kashmir unit Chamanlal Gupta won by a huge margin.

With a BJP-led government in place in Himachal Pradesh, the BJP also hopes to win the Mandi seat which goes to the poll later this month.

 

There is little prospect of Union ministers Ramakrishna Hegde and Ram Jethmalani being asked to resign as sought by Jayalalitha in her letter sent to Vajpayee last week. Their comments have been sought on the points raised by the AIADMK supremo but matters, it is believed, would rest at that.

While Hegde is abroad, Jethmalani has already sent his reply to Vajpayee on all the allegations levelled against him by Jayalalitha.

Jethmalani yesterday said he had replied on Monday itself when he received the letter from Vajpayee, alongwith a copy of Jayalalithas letter. Government sources said Jethamalani was also likely to go to court against Janata Party leader Subramaniam Swamy for allegedly defaming him.

There is also a section within the BJP-led government which feels that Vajpayee should call Jayalalithas bluff and refuse to entertain any more demands for resignation of certain ministers. A senior minister revealed that Jayalalitha was primarily upset that Vajpayee had not agreed to her nominees being appointed the chief of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the attorney-general of India. Both posts are considered vital in the context of the ongoing cases against her.

Union railway minister and Samata Party leader Nitish Kumar yesterday went along with the distinction drawn by BJP leaders between criminal and political offences and said Buta Singhs dismissal was merely the result of Vajpayee applying a common yardstick. He did not believe that the dismissal was carried out at Jayalalithas behest.

Such things do happen in a coalition government. Buta Singh should have resigned on his own. The Vajpayee government is enjoying good health.It will last its full term. Such episodes are part of the teething troubles of any coalition government, Nitish Kumar said.

There was, however, renewed demand for the setting up of a coordination committee to sort out problems among coalition partners internally instead of going public.

The demand was yesterday made by Nitish Kumar as well as Union steel minister Navin Patnaik.

The formation of such a committee was on the cards after the Vajpayee government took office, but is yet to be set up.