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Arithmetic in Vajpayee's favour

Onkar Singh in Delhi

Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leaders are confident that Trinamool Congress chief and Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee and Minister of State for External Affairs Ajit Panja can be persuaded to withdraw their resignations.

The two Bengal leaders resigned from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee ministry on Saturday evening in protest at the steep hike in the price of petroleum products and cooking gas.

Though BJP leaders in the capital hope the storm will blow over after Prime Minister Vajpayee rejected the resignations, many in the party are nevertheless nervous about the development.

Party troubleshooter Pramod Mahajan is already working out the arithmetic. The BJP has 182 seats in the Lok Sabha. The Telugu Desam Party has 29 members, but it supports the National Democratic Alliance government from the outside. The Trinamool Congress has 9 members in the Lok Sabha.

BJP allies like the Shiromani Akali Dal and Haryana Chief Minister Om Parkash Chautala's Indian National Lok Dal are also believed to be upset with the petrol price hike. The Akali Dal has two MPs while the INLD has 5. The BJP's Tamil allies -- the DMK, MDMK and PMK -- together have 21 MPs. Another ally, Farooq Abdullah's National Conference party, has 4 MPs while the Shiv Sena has 15 members.

On the Opposition benches, the Communists have 33 members, while Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party has 25 MPs. Ajit Singh's two-MP party is also likely to oppose the price hike. The Congress has 113 Lok Sabha members, while Sharad Pawar's Nationalist Congress Party has 8 MPs. The Bahujan Samaj Party has 14 MPs.

For the time being the arithmetic is in Vajpayee's favour, but "we are keeping our fingers crossed," a prominent BJP member in the Rajya Sabha told rediff.com

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