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Cabinet's decision is causing more problems for BJP

George Iype in New Delhi

The Union Cabinet's recommendation to axe the Rabri Devi government in Bihar may have opened a Pandora's box for Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as some of his alliance partners are preparing to seek their pound of flesh from the six-month-old coalition government.

While the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership decided to sack the Rashtriya Janata Dal government with an eye on forming an alternative government in the state, the BJP's allies at the Centre hold the prime minister guilty of not taking them into confidence.

"Sacking a state government by invoking Article 356 of the Constitution is serious business. The prime minister should have shown the decency to convene the coalition's co-ordination committee to arrive at a consensus," Trinamul Congress general secretary and member of Parliament Sudip Bandhopadhya told Rediff On The NeT.

He said if rising crime, violence, and killings are reasons for sacking a state government, the first target should have been West Bengal.

Bihar Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari's report to President K R Narayanan and the Union home ministry had pointed out that there had been 70 killings across the state recently. But Bandhopadhya said that was nothing compared to the number of killings in West Bengal, ruled by a coalition headed by the Communist Party of India-Marxist. "More than 130 people were killed during the panchayat (village council) elections," he said.

"The Centre's action in Bihar has forced us to step up our agitation against the West Bengal government," he added.

In Tamil Nadu, the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam has already increased its clamour for the dismissal of the DMK government in the state.

And as the President prolongs the suspense, the Vajpayee government is getting jittery. Key regional supporters have opposed its decision which has also united a disparate group of Opposition parties led by the Congress.

A section within the BJP fears the move could boomerang on the Vajpayee government as even friendly parties like the DMK in Tamil Nadu, the Telugu Desam Party in Andhra Pradesh, and the National Conference in Jammu and Kashmir have sided with the Congress on the issue.

Others are hurt that the decision to impose central rule in Bihar was not conveyed to them by the prime minister or the BJP leadership. Defence Minister Fernandes is believed to have called up both AIADMK general secretary Jayalalitha Jayaram and Trinamul Congress president Mamata Bannerjee to break the news.

Jayalalitha today said the dismissal was a ploy to engineer defections from Laloo Prasad Yadav's RJD and Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party.

Actually, this is what the Trinamul Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal, and Lok Shakti also believe, that the BJP is aiming to try and cobble together a majority in the Lok Sabha by "buying" members of Parliament from the RJD and the Samajwadi Party. And Fernandes's Samata Party is playing the catalyst.

Samata politicians and the BJP's own Bihar unit had impressed upon the party's leadership that removing Rabri Devi's government was the only way to break Laloo Yadav's hold on the state's entrenched bureaucracy, something they fear at election time.

BJP leaders also feared that their upper-caste and Kurmi supporters in north and central Bihar were deserting them as Yadav began whipping up emotions against the creation of the new Vananchal state.

But BJP vice-president Kishen Lal Sharma put a brave face on these tensions, saying the decision to impose President's rule in Bihar had no relationship with the coalition government's longevity. "We agree with our allies that use of Article 356 is [an] extreme [step]. But the situation in Bihar called for imposition of President's rule," he told Rediff On The NeT.

Sharma also said that if the President returns the Cabinet's recommendation, the government will probably wait till Vajpayee returns to arrive at a decision. "But we expect that the President will impose central rule in Bihar," he added.

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