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The Bharatiya Janata Party may step in to help Deve Gowda remain as
caretaker Prime Minister in case a midterm poll becomes inevitable.
Party leaders are exploring various options on this front including
the possibility of abstaining during the confidence vote on April
11 to ensure that Congress president Sitaram Kesri does not bag
this status for himself.
Although the BJP is baulking at the idea of abstaining during the
confidence vote, it is not averse to the idea of supporting Deve
Gowda as caretaker Prime Minister.
The party's perception is that if the present deadlock in the
United Front-Congress negotiations persist, the only way out is
dissolution of the Lok Sabha.
There is little likelihood of the BJP being able to form an
alternative government.
In such a scenario, it would like to either see its own leader,
Atal Behari Vajpayee, as caretaker Prime Minister by virtue of
heading the largest single party or Deve Gowda who it sees as the
lesser of the two evils if the other choice is Kesri.
The proposal to back Deve Gowda was put to Vajpayee by a BJP MLA
from Karnataka, H N Nanje Gowda, who is a close friend of the Prime
Minister. His formula is that the BJP abstain from voting on the
confidence motion so that Deve Gowda retains the right to be
appointed caretaker PM through the mid-term polls, which he would
recommend immediately after surviving the majority test.
Two days of heated debate by members of the party's National
Executive saw sharp divisions between the hardliners and the others
on the Nanje Gowda proposal.
Ultimately, both Advani and Vajpayee are believed to have told the
members that the party need not take a decision till April 10 by
which time the prevailing confusion would clarify. A strategy could
be evolved in the fight of what happens on the other side.
The members were, however, unanimous in their opinion that Kesri
must be kept out at an costs. Their assessment was that the
Congress president simply did not have the numbers to form a
government, certainly not a stable one that would last for more
than a few months.
Once he was sworn in, he would then be the automatic choice for
caretaker PM which members felt would be detrimental to their
interests.
It was this perception which prompted Advani and Vajpayee to bring
up the question of who would head the caretaker government in a
mid-term poll when they met President Shanker Dayal Sharma on
Tuesday evening.
The point they stressed to the President was that Kesri simply did
not have the necessary support to form a government and his claim
should be properly verified before he was sworn in as the caretaker
issue would become vital if Lok Sabha had to be dissolved.
The BJP's desire to stop a Congress government, even a caretaker
government, seems to be prompted by the manipulation such a
government could do on the multitude of corruption and other cases
hanging over the party's head.
Even if ultimately, the BJP decides to vote against the government
during the confidence vote, it would like to add to the present
confusion.
The aim being that the party has nothing to lose by keeping
speculation alive and everything to gain if by appearing to prop
Deve Gowda up, it can scuttle Kesri's hopes of getting to 7 Race
Course Road.
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