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BJP will empower PM to call Jaya's bluff

George Iype in New Delhi

The Bharatiya Janata Party national executive meeting at Panaji this week will empower Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to make crucial changes in the coalition in view of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam chief J Jayalalitha's combative posturings these past few days. The meeting begins in the Goan capital on Friday.

BJP strategists have carried out a series of informal consultations with all its alliance partners, barring the AIADMK, to discuss the government's survival if Vajpayee's clash with Jayalalitha over Defence Minister George Fernandes leads to her withdrawing her party's support to the government.

BJP officials said a consensus has emerged that even if the AIADMK pulls out of the coalition over the Admiral Bhagwat issue, the government could be saved through "new allies, fence-sitters and abstentions in Parliament."

But Vajpayee and the BJP leadership are taking no chances. BJP sources said Vajpayee has deputed Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Bannerjee to talk to the Tamil Maanila Congress and the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in Tamil Nadu to seek their support if and when Jayalalitha goes out of the ruling alliance.

Efforts are also being made to pacify the four-member strong Haryana Lok Dal headed by Om Parkash Chautala, who had quit the Vajpayee coalition last month, and to return to the ruling bloc.

"We are absolutely clear the government is not ready to accept Jayalalitha's demands on Admiral Bhagwat and Fernandes," a BJP official said. If Jayalalitha insists on her fresh set of demands, he added, there would be no other option but for her to seek an honourable exit from the coalition.

"We have firmly decided to call Jayalalitha's bluff," the BJP leader added.

Bannerjee is expected to talk to TMC chief G K Moopanar and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi on a possible tie-up if the AIADMK decides to leave.

Though Bannerjee and Jayalalitha had a meeting during the latter's Delhi visit, the Trinamool chief has refused to support the AIADMK general secretary on the Fernandes issue.

Sensing that Jayalalitha is slowly, but surely, gravitating towards the Opposition, Bannerjee did not attend the tea party organised by Janata Party president Dr Subramanian Swamy.

BJP politicians are optimistic that the government will scrape through in Parliament when the debate on Bhagwat's dismissal is taken up from April 12.

BJP officials pointed out that non-Congress MPs, especially from the regional parties, are scared of facing a mid-term poll at this juncture. Therefore, even if the Bhagwat debate is put to vote in the Lok Sabha, the BJP expects that "abstentions and cross-voting" will help the government pull through.

The Vajpayee government had scored a 29-vote victory in the Lower House on the imposition of President's rule in Bihar last month. Hence, even if the 18-member strong AIADMK bloc votes against the government, the BJP leadership feels the government will survive.

If Jayalalitha decides to leave the Vajpayee coalition, the government will be reduced to a minority with 264 seats in the Lok Sabha, including outside support from the Telugu Desam Party.

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