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BJP confident of weathering all the storms

Rajesh Ramachandran in New Delhi

An unimpressive Budget, coercive allies, Ayodhya and an Opposition slowly finding its way, all this could have added to the woes of Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government. But the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party still feels it could sail through the turbulent monsoon session of Parliament.

The party points out that despite the call to seek an alternate government, the principal Opposition, the Congress, is not ready to pull down the government to experiment with a coalition. In fact, after seeking an adjournment motion on the renewed Ayodhya controversy, the Congress did a quick volte face.

It is even alleged that the Congress's cold feet had to do with the Italian connection that has already been established by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Bofors scandal.

The quid pro quo, BJP sources suggest, could be no drastic action in the Bofors investigation at least for a year.

And according to BJP leaders, even the thorn in the saffron flesh, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary J Jayalalitha, cannot do much more than demand the dismissal of the Tamil Nadu government.

"She might have sent feelers to the Congress, but she cannot help the Congress get rid of our government. After that will the Congress take her into the government? Will such a Congress-led government dismiss the Tamil Nadu government? All that would happen if she pulls down our government is that she would find herself behind bars the next day," a BJP vice-president told Rediff On The NeT.

The party feels that even if the Congress does cobble up a minority government much the BJP way, the United Front constituents would not let Jayalalitha be part of the government.

Thus, Jayalalitha gains nothing if her move against the BJP does not result in the removal of the Tamil Nadu government.

"You need not expect anything in the immediate future. The Budget session will continue till August. There is hardly one-and-a-half months to go and we won't be able to make out a case against Karunanidhi in such a short span of time. Meanwhile, we would also play along with her. If Venkaiah Naidu or Rangarajan Kumaramangalam go to Tamil Nadu they would keep her in good humour by seeking Karunanidhi's dismissal," says a BJP leader.

Meanwhile, the BJP feels it has won the Ayodhya battle in Parliament. Party sources point out that there was a clear brief to the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that the temple controversy should be kept alive while the party is in power.

In fact, the VHP had gone on a media blitzkrieg soon after the BJP assumed power, announcing that work on the prefabricated temple is going on, whereas the work had been in progress since 1995.

And Prime Minister Vajpayee, true to his earlier stand, held that the executive would abide by the judiciary. But Home Minister L K Advani, who is identified with the temple controversy, failed to give any such assurance.

"Now the issue is very much in the public memory and we would get an advantage in the coming assembly elections in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. But the temple is not going to be the decisive factor in the elections, remember we lost Madhya Pradesh immediately after the Babri Masjid demolition," says the BJP leader.

The Congress realised its folly and stopped short of the adjournment motion on Ayodhya because a BJP government pulled down over Ayodhya is a greater threat than the government going out on any other issue.

As for the extension of the Liberhans Commission probing the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the BJP does not attach much importance to the PM's action.

Leaders feel the Commission, without any investigative apparatus, would meet the same fate as the Jain Commission and all the commissions of inquiry preceding it.

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