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Sonia opts to stay out of alternative government

George Iype in New Delhi

Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party is engaged in hectic negotiations and hard bargaining to succeed in the numbers game in Parliament, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has made her strategy clear to like-minded Opposition partners.

Sources said Gandhi has deftly put the power game into the Third Front and Left parties' court, telling them that the Congress is not ready to lead a coalition at this juncture.

But the Congress, she has suggested, is willing to support an alternative Third Front-Left-led government from outside.

In her meetings with chief interlocutors like Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet and Janata Party president Dr Subramanian Swamy, Gandhi expressed the "unpreparedness" of the Congress to head a coalition government.

Thus it was that Swamy flew down to Calcutta on Thursday to hold parleys with West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, while Sonia held a series of consultations with senior party leaders and Surjeet talked to the other key players like the Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Laloo Prasad Yadav and Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav.

The script for an alternative to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime -- if and when the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha withdraws support - thus, is being prepared by Gandhi in consultation with 'secular' opposition parties.

Gandhi is said to be totally against the idea of the Congress foisting a government despite pressure from a cross-section of party leaders. Her lack of interest mainly stems from the fear that the Congress's image could dip considerably if the party decides to lead a government, especially with her taking up the post of prime minister.

Gandhi is aware that once in power, the Congress will have the tough task of accommodating the wish-list of leaders like Jayalalitha and Laloo Yadav. That would include demands like ouster of the Tamil Nadu government, institution of a judicial commission against Chief Minister Karunanidhi and protection and preferential treatments to both Jayalalitha and Laloo Yadav.

While the Third Front and Left leaders are receptive to Gandhi's plan, the main hitch is the bargaining that is expected between Mulayam Yadav and Jayalalitha for the post of prime minister.

Both Yadav with 20 MPs and Jayalalitha with 18 MPs nurture the ambition to occupy the top slot. But while the Congress president does not want the prime ministerial post to be awarded to Mulayam, the Left parties are dead against it going to Jayalalitha.

Therefore, as consensus, sources said, there have emerged two front-runners for the toip job: former prime ministers Chandra Shekhar and H D Deve Gowda.

Opposition leaders who are working on a Third Front-Left led coalition aver that the plan is in the initial stage and a final decision would be taken only after Jayalalitha withdraws support to the BJP regime. A concrete shape to the proposal would be given only after leaders like Gandhi, Jayalalitha, Surjeet and the Yadavs meet some time next week.

While the Opposition parleys to topple the Vajpayee government has started making headway, the BJP's negotiations with prospective alliance partners like the Bahujan Samaj Party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Indian National Lok Dal have come to nought.

After two-days of talks with DMK politicians in Madras, the BJP politicians have been apparently told not to count the Dravidian party's support to bail out the Vajpayee government. But despite the negative signals, the BJP leaders expect to hold another round of talks with Karunanidhi's special emissary and state health minister and electricity minister A N Veerasamy in Delhi on Thursday night.

The BJP crisis managers are also in touch with BSP chief Kanshi Ram and INLD president Om Prakash Chautala. The party leadership on Thursday entrusted former Union minister Madan Lal Khurana with the task of wooing Chautala.

However, both Kanshi Ram and Chautala have put up stiff conditions. While the BSP chief has demanded the removal of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, Chautala is adamant that the Vajpayee government should roll back the subsidy cuts effected last year.

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