Buoyed by Bihar, RLM pressures
Sonia to pull down Vajpayee
George Iype in New Delhi
Having defeated the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government on Bihar, Congress president Sonia Gandhi is facing a dilemma: Rashtriya Loktantrik Morcha (National Democratic Front) leaders Laloo Prasad Yadav and Mulayam Singh Yadav, and the Left parties as well, are pressing her to form an alternative coalition at the Centre.
The two Yadavs have met Gandhi separately in the past week, to plead that she oust the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition before the Budget session ends in May.
They told her they were ready to accept her as prime minister of a Congress-RLM government supported by the Left Front, in return for the Congress's decision to oppose President's rule in Bihar.
The Left leaders, especially Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet, are of the opinion that the Congress and the Third Front will gain a tremendous political advantage if a Congress-led government orders a mid-term election.
The Congress leadership also foresees that being in power will make a crucial difference if a general election takes place by the end of this year.
The Left parties' decision to support a Congress coalition from outside follows its keenness to dislodge the BJP-led government immediately, and senior Leftist politicians like West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu recently met Sonia Gandhi with the promise of support.
Though the Congress president has not rejected the proposal, she is said to be lukewarm to any idea of propping up an alternative government at this juncture, for two reasons. First, she is personally in favour of the Congress facing a fresh Lok Sabha election along with the state assembly elections due in November.
Second, she and some of her senior colleagues in the party believe that both Yadavs are "unreliable partners" and joining hands with them will only distance the Congress from its traditional voters.
Moreover, the Congress president has made it crystal clear to the Yadavs that her party is not interested in pulling Vajpayee down and cobbling together a Congress-led coalition government. "Sonia wants some of the alliance partners of the BJP coalition to withdraw support and approach the Congress to help form a government," a Congressman close to her said.
But that does not seem to be happening at present as the Bihar fiasco and the Budget presented by Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha have, respectively, united and pleased hitherto belligerent allies like the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Trinamul Congress, and the Telugu Desam Party.
"In fact, Sonia did not want to pull down the government on the Bihar issue. Her decision to oppose central rule in Bihar was to weaken the Vajpayee government, which, unfortunately, has not happened," he admitted to Rediff On The NeT.
Most Congress politicians believe the party's Bihar decision was part of a bad strategy promoted mainly by Gandhi's key advisers like Arjun Singh and Ahmed Patel. Sharad Pawar, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, and Dr Manmohan Singh, his counterpart in the Rajya Sabha, were against reinstating Rabri Devi.
Singh and Patel are also actively campaigning for renewing the Congress-Rashtriya Janata Dal alliance if Bihar goes for a mid-term assembly election. In return, Laloo Yadav has promised that his wife will soon put in place a series of minority-dalit programmes in the state.
RJD spokesman M A A Fatmi, a close associate of Laloo Yadav, said RLM politicians are confident the BJP-led government will collapse as allies like the Samata Party and the Biju Janata Dal are on the verge of splits.
On Wednesday, a section of the BJD led by Ram Krushna Patnaik appealed to party president Navin Patnaik to review their participation in the Vajpayee government.
"The Bihar issue has weakened the coalition and eroded its credibility. Therefore it does not have any moral right to continue ruling India. We are stepping up our campaign to throw the BJP out of power," Fatmi told Rediff On The NeT.
He claimed the Congress is seriously "examining the proposal to form an alternative government". "We have told Sonia Gandhi that only a Congress-led coalition can give a secular government in the country," he stated.
The two Yadavs are expected to meet her again with the proposal later this week.
Fatmi said a section of the Samata Party's leaders and legislators who are opposed to Defence Minister George Fernandes's leadership of the party has approached Laloo Yadav to seek refuge in the RJD.
Cornered by Fernandes, some of the fence-sitters in the Samata Party led by MLA Shivanand Tiwari are said to be on the verge of leaving it, accusing the top leadership of "saffronising" the party.
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