Deve Gowda's designs land Gujral in trouble
Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi
The United Front steering committee meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, has been postponed.
The postponement has triggered speculation that Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral's move -- accommodating Laloo Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal in the 13-party United Front -- has run into rough weather.
Senior UF leaders say the meeting was put off because of Front ministers's indecision on the petrol price hike. However, there are reasons to believe that Gujral is enmeshed in a no-win situation following former prime minister H D Deve Gowda and Union Railway Minister Ram Vilas Paswan's opposition to the RJD's entry into the Front.
Aware of Deve Gowda's designs, the Bihar chief minister
publicly stated that he would soon fix his foes in the Janata Dal. For good measure, Laloo Yadav broadly hinted at Deve Gowda.
Significantly, a meeting of the Left parties is likely to be held on Tuesday to discuss the political implications of the RJD's entry into the UF. The Left parties have already sought Laloo Yadav's resignation in view of the CBI chargesheet against him in the Rs 9.5 billion fodder scam.
Meanwhile, in a significant development Bihar Governor A R Kidwai called on President Dr Shankar Dayal Sharma at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Monday.
Kidwai is understood to have apprised the President about the swiftly changing political developments in the state during the 20-minute
meeting.
The meeting assumes significance because the governor is
meeting the President for the first time after he gave sanction to
the Central Bureau of Investigation to charge-sheet Laloo Yadav for his alleged role in the fodder scam.
Leaders of some political parties, particularly the Bharatiya
Janata Party and the Samata Party, have been demanding dismissal of
the Laloo Yadav government and imposition of President's rule in
the state.
The Congress has gone on record saying that Laloo Yadav should tender his resignation. Congress president Sitaram Kesri on Monday told Congress Legislature Party leaders that they should launch a ''people's struggle'' in the states where the party is in opposition.
Kesri said the BJP and the Left, which accused the Congress of corruption, were both corrupt. In this context, he drew reporters's attention to the ledger scam in West Bengal and the allegedly rampant corruption in Maharashtra, where the Shiv Sena-BJP government
is in power.
Addressing the media after the meeting, Congress spokesman V N Gadgil said Kesri was of the view that 90 per cent of the Congressmen
were honest. The remark evoked sniggers among the mediapersons.
EARLIER STORY:
Laloo Yadav splits Janata Dal, sets up Rashtriya Dal
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