Deve Gowda refuses to step down
In a last ditch attempt to save the United
Front government, several Front leaders urged
Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda on Friday morning to step down,
but he declined to oblige.
Highly-placed Front sources said Deve Gowda told the UF
leaders, who called on him at his home and made
the suggestion, that ''I am prepared to face the vote of
confidence.'' The meeting ended abruptly.
Other than the Left parties, the sources said all the major
constituents of the Front -- the Janata Dal, the DMK, the TMC, tyhe
TDP and the AGP -- favoured that Deve Gowda make way for
someone else to ensure the
continuance of Congress support to the government. The Left
parties, however, were neutral on the issue.
The Congress has made Deve Gowda's removal as the condition
for continuance of support.
With the fall of Deve Gowda's government becoming imminent,
the Front leaders swung into action and held a full-fledged meeting
at Andhra Pradesh Bhavan on Friday morning.
All the top Front leaders, except the prime minister attended
the meeting. Those present included AP Chief Minister
N Chandrababu Naidu, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, TMC
president G K Moopanar, Industries Minister Murasoli Maran, Finance
Minister P Chidambaram, Assam Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, CPI
general secretary A B Bardhan, CPI-M general secretary
Harkishan Singh Surjeet and West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu.
The leaders felt that the UF government could not
be saved unless Deve Gowda stepped down. Such a move would also help
to avert a mid-term poll and attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party to form the
government.
The Left refused to go along with the majority. Bardhan
asked journalists, "Will the change of leadership save
the situation?"
|