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ELECTIONS '96

BJP readies strategy to counter Congress-UF pincer movement

Rajesh Ramachandran in New Delhi

The Bharatiya Janata Party is gearing up for the numbers game in the capital, and does not rule out a post-poll arrangement with some constituents of the United Front.

A senior party leader told Rediff On The NeT, "An alliance with the Telugu Desam and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam is quite possible."

Though official talks have not begun and the leaders have not returned to Delhi after their tour of various states, the BJP is taking precautions to avoid an Uttar Pradesh-like ganging up of the non-BJP entities to prop up a United Front-Congress government.

Though the BJP's ally in Tamil Nadu, J Jayalalitha is the DMK's arch-rival, the BJP leaders assert that when it comes to sheer numbers the party would not mind aligning with the party which has the most number of members in Parliament.

"It will all depend on who gets more seats. If the DMK gets more seats than the AIADMK and the TDP gets more seats than Lakshmi Parvathi, then we would be forced to switch our allegiance. After all, alliances at the Centre and the state-level need not be the same," says a high-ranking BJP leader.

But for the moment it is all just a hypothesis since the party is spreading the word that a national magazine conducted an exit poll and the results just suit the party.

It is claimed that after the two phases of polling the BJP is ahead with more than 200 seats. The tall claim is that the BJP will romp home with a comfortable majority.

Most of the states which are going to the polls like Gujarat, Maharshtra and Madhya Pradesh on February 28 are those where the BJP expects to get a considerable number of seats.

Yet the party is not ready to sit with crossed fingers as the UF and the Congress have reportedly begun talks on government formation.

Indications are that the party may not even mind showing the cold shoulder to the allies with which it has gone to the polls in search of the magical figure of 273 which it needs for a simple majority.

In fact, in the routine daily briefing BJP spokesperon K L Sharma said the former UP chief minister's one-day wonder was a trailer to what is in store for the nation in the days to come. The BJP has also attacked the central government for not taking up the UP affairs for discussion at Friday's Cabinet meeting.

The party feels the central government might have been a party to the dismissal of the Kalyan Singh government and Jagdambika Pal's installation as chief minister.

The party cites Prime Minister I K Gujral's reluctance to respond to its leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee's phone calls as an instance of the central government's connivance with the UP governor Romesh Bhandari to have a non-BJP government in power in Lucknow.

Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet along with Defence Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav are blamed for the central government not taking action on the President's letters to the prime minister.

"Surjeet, Arjun Singh and Mulayam have already begun talks, and they would do anything to stop us from coming to power. So we too have to do whatever we can to pip them at the post," said a BJP leader.

Elections '98

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