COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Chautala cool to overtures, says Khurana

Former Union Parliamentary Affairs and Tourism Minister Madan Lal Khurana today expressed the hope that Indian National Lok Dal leader Om Prakash Chautala would extend support to the Vajpayee government to bail it out from the present crisis.

Talking to newspersons, Khurana said he had talked to Chautala yesterday and this morning. Though his initial response was ''not much positive, I am confident to bring him back to support the Vajpayee government.''

He said Chautala would be coming to the capital on Sunday and they would meet on April 12 to discuss the issue.

The former Union minister said that he had gone to Anandpur Sahib yesterday to attend the tercentenary celebrations of Khalsa Panth he met Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and urged him to use his good offices to persuade Chautala.

Badal was instrumental in getting the support of Chautala for Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee soon after the last Lok Sabha elections.

Khurana denied that Chautala had withdrawn support after his demand for dismissal of the Bansi Lal government in Haryana had been rejected. This was not the issue, he said.

The former Delhi chief minister said it was his bounden duty to help the BJP-led government in the present circumstances. He however added that the numbers game was in ''our favour'' and the government would be able to prove its majority on the floor of the house. There was no alternative to the Vajpayee government and there was no possibility that a third front would emerge.

Khurana said in the past few months he had been introspecting. During the period he met RSS chief and other senior functionaries of the RSS and the BJP. Besides, he also met Vajpayee and Home Minister L K Advani and ''opened my heart'' to them.

Following their advice, he had put aside all his grievances and decided to work to help the government, Khurana said.

In reply to a question, Khurana clarified that he had never differed with the party's ideology and with those who spent their life to bring the party to power. But he was against ''some persons who entered the party with a careerist approach and who have now become power brokers and opinion makers''.

Refusing to identify them, he said he would expose them at the right time.

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report