RJP MLAs 'missing' hours before trust vote
As the countdown for Thursday's vote of confidence began, the Dilip Parikh government in Gujarat is no taking no chances.
Apprehensive that the Bharatiya Janata Party is out to repeat an Uttar Pradesh in Gujarat, the ruling Rashtriya Janata Party took all its 45 legislators, including ministers, to an undisclosed destination yesterday.
Intended to protect the legislators from horse-trading, the move has come as surprise to political observers, including top BJP leaders, in the state.
Packed into two luxury buses at Gujarat Minister Jassabhai Barad's home, where they gathered for a ''rapport-building'' lunch, the legislators were reportedly taken to the Mehsana water park. Parikh and his predecessor Shankarsinh Vaghela did not accompany the legislators.
Sources said they would be brought back to Gandhinagar only on Thursday morning. It is quite possible that they would head straight for the Congress-RJP MLAs's meeting, scheduled at 1000 hours on Thursday, sources said.
Justifying the move, RJP state president Madhusudan Mistry said his party had no alternative in view of the BJP's intense horse-trading.
A BJP source, however, said the exercise would be futile considering the ''simmering rebellion'' in the RJP. ''It only highlights the Parikh government's persecution complex,'' he added.
Though the BJP has been trying to play up the RJP's ''insecurity'', the saffron brigade itself was in no better position. Caught unawares by the RJP's move, the BJP was struggling for a strategy that would see it in the saddle even as party dissidents were going hammer and tongs at the state unit leadership.
''Considering the past, why did the leadership not realise that this was coming?'' asked a senior party legislator, furious with his bosses for frittering away a ''golden opportunity''. ''What can the national leadership do if the state leaders do not have their ear to the ground?''
The legislator was hinting at reports that some RJP leaders have been offered ministerial berths for ditching Parikh during the trust vote. Taking advantage of the Vaghela supporters's ''wounded pride'' -- the Congress had threatened to withdraw support to the RJP government unless Vaghela was replaced -- the BJP's national leadership was trying to impress upon some top RJP legislators that the time has come to take revenge.
Vaghela's men, however, have not bought the argument, considering their leader's bitter experience with the BJP's national leadership last year.
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