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Centre believes Congress is trying to revive UF coalition

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

The Union government believes the Congress will not lead an alternative to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition and is, instead, aiming to replace it with a reincarnation of the United Front.

Underscoring this perception of the Congress's political strategy, senior officials of the Union home ministry said Sonia Gandhi had recently reiterated her party's Pachmarhi Declaration, which emphasised that the Congress would have no alliance with casteist forces at the Centre, but would endeavour to form a government on its own.

That was why the Congress had said it was not interested in pulling down the government. It would prefer the other opposition parties to dislodge it, the officials said.

In this context, they pointed to the 'candidature' of former prime minister H D Deve Gowda to be head of government again. At present, they said, Deve Gowda is the only consensus candidate for the top job in a "third force" government. The Congress, they said, would then 'manage' Rashtriya Janata Dal president Laloo Prasad Yadav and his Samajwadi Party counterpart Mulayam Singh Yadav. Both Yadavs had fallen out with Deve Gowda towards the latter part of his eleven-month tenure.

To substantiate their theory, the officials pointed out that Sonia Gandhi had a forty-minute meeting with Deve Gowda on January 8 at his 5 Safdarjang Lane residence.

A month later, on February 8, Deve Gowda invited Indian National Lok Dal president Om Prakash Chautala for a meeting. The next day, Deve Gowda was on his way to Delhi airport to fly to Bangalore when he received a call from Gandhi on his mobile phone and turned back. The ex-prime minister held a meeting with Chautala the same evening after which Chautala threatened to withdraw support to the government in protest against raising prices.

On February 10, Chautala held a meeting in Hissar (Haryana) where he gave the government time till February 21 to roll back prices. On February 16, he met Deve Gowda twice before calling on Prime Minister A B Vajpayee at his residence and announcing withdrawal of his party's support.

As part of the attempt to bring down the coalition, the officials expect sacked admiral Vishnu Bhagwat to make a "sensational disclosure" soon to embarrass the government, especially Defence Minister George Fernandes.

But the officials said the government would not keep quiet in the face of the Opposition's moves to dislodge it. If provoked, it will ensure that certain sensitive Bofors documents are made public on the eve of the discussion on the Bhagwat dismissal in the Lok Sabha on April 12.

They also ruled out the collapse of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government. Their assessment is that All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam general secretary J Jayalalitha will not withdraw support at least until the assembly elections in November this year.

Reacting to a report yesterday about Opposition initiatives to bring down the government, they told Rediff On The NeT that intelligence reports suggest Jayalalitha's party will not leave the coalition in the lurch.

They termed as 'wishful thinking' Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy's efforts to trigger the ruling coalition's collapse by wooing away the AIADMK.

But they refused to say whether Jayalalitha had given Vajpayee an assurance in this context.

Asked whether the government had any doubts about the continued support of any of its allies, the officials said cryptically, "Watch Mr Shakuni Chowdhary [Samata Party] and Mr Tathagat Satpathy [Biju Janata Dal]."

Recent reports have suggested that several Samata Party politicians are dissatisfied with the leadership of Nitish Kumar and party chief George Fernandes because they are seen to be blocking the prospects of their colleagues for ministerial berths.

Similarly, in the BJP, apart from Satpathy, other MPs who are not satisfied with party chief Navin Patnaik are P K Samanta Ray and two others. The officials indicated that Dr Swamy has requested a meeting with Satpathy.

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