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Vajpayee buys peace in the coalition

George Iype in New Delhi

By placating some troublesome allies with inducements, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has ensured that the Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition does not falter in the Budget session of Parliament.

Growing protests and threats to withdraw support from crucial allies like the All-India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, the Trinamul Congress, and the Telugu Desam Party prompted the prime minister to comply with some of their demands over the past week.

Thus, the government has bailed out AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalitha by transferring the corruption cases against her, her former ministers, and some senior bureaucrats from the three special judges appointed by the DMK government in Tamil Nadu to four regular sessions judges in Madras.

Sources said the government notified the extraordinary gazette announcing the unilateral nomination of judges to hear cases against Jayalalitha after she served an ultimatum on Vajpayee threatening to withdraw support during the budget session.

Union Minister of State for Personnel Kadambur Janardhanam and Law Minister M Thambi Durai, the two AIADMK politicians in the central government who have been working overtime on Jayalalitha's cases, had submitted to the Cabinet details of the necessary "case transfers" to protect their leader.

The Centre's decision to put, at one stroke, all cases pertaining to Jayalalitha's acts of omission and commission between 1991 and 1996 out of the purview of the special courts is seen as a victory for her.

But BJP politicians said there is nothing unusual about the transfer of cases. "The central government has exclusive powers to allocate business to special courts across the country," party vice-president Jai Prakash Mathur told Rediff On The NeT.

He denied that the government had buckled under pressure from Jayalalitha. "It is not a politically motivated decision. The central government issues similar notifications in umpteen cases. But it has attracted public attention just because the cases pertain to Jayalalitha."

But other BJP officials disclosed that the decision to bail out Jayalalitha was part of Vajpayee's plan to keep his disparate flock together.

Vajpayee's most belligerent critics within the coalition have been the AIADMK, the TDP, and the Trinamul Congress. All three have at various times in the last month threatened to bring down the government.

BJP politicians said the government decided to pacify the three regional parties, who together have 37 members in the Lok Sabha, after it felt it could no longer afford to ignore their threats.

So, while the Cabinet transferred Jayalalitha's cases to regular courts, it accepted some of the 22 demands of the so-called Bengal package of Mamata Banerjee and included them in the railway projects worth Rs 50,290 million approved last week.

Vajpayee also bowed to the wishes of TDP president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu by calling a meeting of the National Development Council on February 19 to discuss subsidies.

Forced by the three allies, the government also rolled back the pre-Budget increase in prices of wheat and rice issued through the public distribution system for those below the poverty line.

"Our information is that Jayalalitha, Mamata and Naidu are satisfied with the government's recent decisions. These decisions were essentially meant to ensure that the coalition stays intact during the Budget session of Parliament," one BJP politician pointed out.

He said Vajpayee decided to move swiftly to fulfil some of the crucial demands of the allies because the party leadership was feeling uneasy about "the informal meetings between the Congress leadership and parties like the AIADMK and Trinamul Congress".

Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who has stepped up her criticism of the government, has reportedly been negotiating with AIADMK and Trinamul politicians on forming an alternative government.

But for now, Vajpayee seems to have won over his most vociferous critics. Before the prime minister left on Sunday for the G-15 summit in Jamaica, the TDP sent Lok Sabha Speaker G M C Balayogi to his home with an assurance of continued support for the government. Banerjee and Jayalalitha have also told Vajpayee they are not contemplating any immediate action that would threaten his government.

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