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Ram Prakash Gupta may be replaced, sooner than later

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

After the drubbing of the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Uttar Pradesh panchayat elections, opinion is building up within the party that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee knowingly fell into the trap laid out by Kalyan Singh by agreeing to make Ram Prakash Gupta the chief minister.

Party workers say a similar fate awaits the BJP if Gupta leads the party during the assembly elections due in another year. There were demands for Gupta's removal within months of his taking over as chief minister.

In this context, BJP vice-president K Jana Krishnamurthy's statement on Thursday bodes ill for Gupta. He said the leadership issue would be taken up after the party's organisational elections to be held in the third week of July.

"I don't rule out anything. If toning up of the administration requires changing the chief minister, we will do it," he said. Party sources said the change would automatically invigorate the state administration.

Party heavyweights Kalraj Mishra and Lalji Tandon have already begun lobbying for the top job. Both belong to the Brahmin community. They have been resisting the BJP high command's efforts to replace Gupta with Union Surface Transport Minister Rajnath Singh, a Rajput.

When Kalyan Singh stepped down as chief minister, there were numerous aspirants for the post and Vajpayee had the unenviable task of choosing one from among them. By choosing the nondescript Gupta, the prime minister willingly became a victim of Kalyan Singh's guile, a BJP leader said.

Kalyan had 'compelled' the BJP leadership to accept Gupta as his replacement, a fact that is now being regretted in various party circles. After the party's dismal performance, Gupta's continuance as chief minister is in serious doubt, says the leader.

The BJP was routed all over the state. Following his expulsion, Kalyan has been asserting that he would gradually wipe out the BJP from UP. Presently, he is harping on the fact that the BJP could not win even a single seat in Vajpayee's high profile Lucknow parliamentary constituency.

"Will the prime minister accept this state of affairs?" asked a party general secretary who had no doubt that Gupta would be sacked. He said the general trend during the panchayat polls indicated that only harsh measures would help the party recover lost ground.

The poll results may have just triggered a war of succession.

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