Moopanar Vows To Continue In United Front

Tamil Maanila Congress leader G K Moopanar has assured his colleagues in the United Front that his party has no intention at the moment of joining the Congress to form a new government.

At one of the meetings of senior United Front leaders held over the last couple of days, Moopanar said he expected the Gowda government to last another year.

In view of the sabre-rattling by the Congress in the days since Sitaram Kesari took charge of the party, Moopanar's assurance has provided a much-needed relief to the United Front.

Tamil Maanila Congress, as Moopanar pointed out, holds the key to future government formation. If its 20 Lok Sabha members were to join the Congress, it would become the largest group in the House. But without the 20, Moopanar said, the Congress could not form an alternative coalition.

 

Moopanar told the meeting that he had met Kesari only once and that a change of guard had not figured in their conversation, which was strictly formal.

Before last year's Lok Sabha elections, Moopanar had led almost the entire Tamil Nadu unit of the Congress out of the party fold in protest against the decision of Narasimha Rao, party president at the time, to ally with Jayalalitha's AIADMK.

Moopanar has had a close association with Kesari. The two leaders had led the same camp in Indira Gandhi's `kitchen cabinet'. Congress circles have therefore set much store by Kesari's ability to persuade the Tamil Maanila Congress leader to support a Congress-led government at the Centre.

However, there is a growing realisation in political circles that Kesari would not be so foolhardy as to form an essentially unstable government when the economy is in a precarious position.

The government would be hamstrung since the Left parties, irrespective of whether they extend their support, will keep carping.

Some senior politicians, who have been in touch with Kesari, speculate that the Congress president allowed the spread of recent rumours about his intention to launch a bid to form government only to ward off panic among the party MPs over the possibility of early mid-term elections. He needed to project this at least until he had installed himself as the leader of the Congress Party in Parliament, which he did early this month.

The perception that the Gowda government is living on borrowed time has provided the backdrop for the recent volatility of stock markets and led to uncertainty in corporate and government activity.