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BJP wants PM to move fast on Bofors

George Iype in New Delhi

Fearing desertion by some important coalition partners after the assembly elections in four states on November 25, the Bharatiya Janata Party has devised a strategy to stymie the Congress plan to prop up an alternative government at the Centre.

The party is learnt to have asked Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to rake up the controversial Bofors case again so that dithering allies like the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and the Trinamul Congress do not switch over after the polls.

According to pre-poll reports, the BJP is facing defeat in Delhi and Rajasthan, though it hopes to wrest power in Madhya Pradesh from the Congress.

"But losing Delhi and Rajasthan will considerably dent the image of the Vajpayee government because both these states are seen as our strongholds," a BJP functionary told Rediff On The NeT. "Therefore, we need to have a plan ready to silence the Congress if it attempts to bring down the government by luring our allies."

Top BJP politicians are of the view that the AIADMK's Jayalalitha Jayaram and Mamata Banerjee of the Trinamul Congress are the two likely to switch sides and help form a Congress-led government if the BJP loses the elections.

While Banerjee recently resigned from the coalition co-ordination committee, accusing Vajpayee of failing to check rising prices, Jayalalitha has been threatening to withdraw support to the government for nearly six months now.

The two ladies, with 25 members in the Lok Sabha between them, can upset Vajpayee's apple cart. If they change sides, a Congress-led coalition will have 273 members while the BJP's alliance will be reduced to 261.

Anticipating just such a scenario, BJP strategists are saying Vajpayee should table the controversial Bofors papers in the winter session of Parliament, which begins this month-end.

Soon after he took over as prime minister, Vajpayee had promised that his government would complete the Bofors inquiry and take follow-up action. Most of his 17 partners in the coalition also wanted the prime minister to table the Bofors papers in Parliament.

The former United Front government headed by Inder Kumar Gujral had already requested the British government in December last to name the three Channel Island account holders who are suspected to have received part of the Rs 640 million kickbacks in the howitzer deal.

But Vajpayee has kept mum on Bofors since then. The Central Bureau of Investigation's report on the scandal, submitted to the government in May 1997, has been gathering dust in the prime minister's office. The report had named former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi as an accused.

The report is said to contain enough evidence to also prove the culpability of former external affairs minister Madhavsinh Solanki (in trying to hush up the inquiry), former defence secretary S K Bhatnagar, and former PMO official Gopi Arora.

Though Gandhi's widow Sonia launched the Congress campaign for the parliamentary election earlier this year by challenging the government to release the Bofors papers, many now believe that if the report is indeed made public, it will create a political storm against the Congress. And the BJP is hoping to cash in on just such a storm to prevent Gandhi from pinching its allies.

UNI

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