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Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi
Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati has indicated that the proposed alliance between her party and the Bharatiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh can only fructify if the latter agrees to give the chief ministership and the speaker's post to her party candidates, a top BJP leader said on Monday.
The senior party leader contended that Mayawati also indicated that she would like to see her party chief Kanshi Ram installed as the country's vice-president, elections for which will be held after the present incumbent Krishna Kant, retires by July this year.
He said Mayawati is meeting Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee later on Monday to explore the possibility of a BSP-BJP government in Uttar Pradesh.
She has already met Kanshi Ram at his Humayun Road residence.
"With Uttar Pradesh Governor Vishnu Kant Shastri saying that stability rather than the largest single party would be the main factor for the formation of the new government in the state, Mayawati wants things moving. She knows that unnecessary delay in cobbling up a government could swing the advantage towards Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party," he pointed out.
He said that even the prime minister was keen to prevent the Samjwadi Party from forming the government in Uttar Pradesh.
"This is despite the fact that our leaders in UP are opposed to having any truck with Mayawati in any form because she has not proved to be reliable," the BJP leader pointed out.
The BJP central leadership is meeting on Tuesday to thrash out these issues, including weighing the question whether it would be more beneficial to form a government in UP with BSP or rather sit in the opposition.
Mulayam on Sunday told reporters that he was in touch with veteran Communist Party (Marxist) leader Harkishen Singh Surjeet who has been entrusted the responsibility of 'unifying secular forces'.
This was an indirect admission that the Samajwadi Party chief wanted Surjeet to mediate with Congress chief Sonia Gandhi so that a SP-Congress-Rashtriya Kranti Party government in UP could be installed.
According to the BJP leader, another factor that could hasten Mayawati's moves to explore the possibility of a BSP-BJP government was that an uncertain situation in the state could also provide an opportunity to the Samajwadi Party chief to break away her party legislators to his side.
"If horse-trading has to be resorted to, now is as good as any other time," he pointed out.
However, much depends on Surjeet's ability to persuade the Congress leadership to support the SP to form the new government in UP.
This is because quite a few Congress leaders like Salman Khursheed, former party chief in the state and the party general secretary incharge of UP, Ghulam Nabi Azad, are opposed to a SP-Congress government.
"We are retrieving lost ground in UP rapidly and the people are closely watching our moves. Our association with the SP in UP in any form will only erode, our image," Khursheed told rediff.com.
He contended that the central party leadership had been apprised of this view.
