Pressure on Sonia to pull the plug on Vajpayee
George Iype in New Delhi
Senior Congress leaders are stepping up the pressure on party president Sonia Gandhi to devise an action plan for the immediate ouster of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government at the Centre.
The stick the leaders hope to beat the BJP-led government with is Ayodhya, and the issue of clandestine construction of a temple there by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
Sources within the party indicate that Sonia will soon despatch a fact-finding team to Ayodhya, Ahmedabad
and Tindwara in Rajasthan, where the Sangh Parivar has hired artisans to build a pre-fabricated temple.
The fact-finding team, comprising senior party leaders, will have the brief of proving that Prime Minister Vajpayee's assurance in Parliament this week, that his government would
not allow the construction of the temple at the disputed site, is a lie.
"The Congress has already enough evidence in possession to prove that activities for the construction of the
Ram temple at Ayodhya is in full swing. We will ensure that Ayodhya is the beginning of the end for the BJP
government," Congress leader and Sonia aide Salman Khurshid told Rediff On The NeT.
"We are also waiting for the suspension of support from some BJP allies to begin moving towards withdrawal of support to
the government," he added.
Party sources indicate that senior Congress Working Committee members Arjun Singh, Sharad Pawar, Ghulam Nabi Azad
and Madhavrao Scindia are of the opinion that this is the right time to pull the rug out from under the Vajpayee government.
In an apparent bid to finalise her "oust-Vajpayee" strategy, the Congress president has made up her mind to
convene the CWC next week. The meeting will be held in Allahabad, sources say.
"If Sonia has the courage, we will ensure the numbers for a Congress-led government at the Centre," one Congress leader remarked.
For the record, the ruling BJP-led alliance has 277 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha. The key to the equation lies in the fact that crucial partners such as J Jayalalitha's All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Mamata Bannerjee's Trinamul Congress have
of late developed serious differences with the government.
Congress strategists believe that Sonia could easily talk both Jayalalitha and Bannerjee -- who command 26
MPs in the Lok Sabha -- to support a Congress-led government. For now, the Congress and its allies command a
parliamentary strength of 168 seats. The party is also banking on other like-minded, anti-BJP parties such as the
Samajwadi Party (20 seats) and the Left Front (43 seats) to help pull down the Vajpayee government, then support a Congress-led successor.
Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh concurs with the Congress estimate. "The longevity of the Vajpayee government depends solely on
the Congress party and Sonia Gandhi," he said. "The BJP leaders will find themselves reduced to a helpless minority
the day Sonia makes up her mind to bring down the BJP government."
Sonia has, thus far, resisted demands for action on this score, siding with that faction of her party that prefers to wait till the assembly elections in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan are over before precipitating matters at the Centre.
However, hawkish elements in the CWC, who believe that the Ayodhya bogey provides the cue for immediate action, are slowly gaining ground within the party forum.
"The Ayodhya issue unites the anti-BJP parties into one platform," CWC member R K Dhawan told Rediff On The NeT. "And there is no harm in thinking and talking
about a Congress-led government, because the BJP government is actually planning to build a temple at
Ayodhya!"
Leaders like Dhawan feel that "politically motivated" nuclear blasts, serious differences between the BJP and its
allies and now the Ayodhya temple issue are reason enough to plan the downfall of the Vajpayee government. And, further, that the time to act is now, before the government gets too deeply entrenched in power.
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