The Hindu : BJP getting disillusioned with U.P. experiment?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Mar 22, 2003

National

National

BJP getting disillusioned with U.P. experiment?

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI MARCH 21. The view that the coalition experiment with Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh is going nowhere — politically and electorally — is doing the rounds in the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Sooner rather than later, the party leadership may have to think seriously about this, and it seems that Ms. Mayawati is also getting an inkling of the same.

Of late, she has been desperately trying — and successfully — to break other parties to win over a few MLAs to reduce her dependence on the BJP.

However, the number game in the Assembly being what it is, the BJP will remain crucial to her survival unless she is able to lure away a big chunk from the Samajwadi Party.

Some influential party leaders, who had strongly favoured the alliance, have now begun to doubt whether the BJP-BSP alliance will pay any electoral dividends in the Lok Sabha polls due in 2004.

Taking the minuses along with the pluses, it is being argued that already the coalition government has resulted in considerable erosion of whatever little support base was left.

Although this idea has not yet been formally discussed at any party forum, one view is that the BJP should call it off, place the State under a short spell of President's rule, use the opportunity to smoothen the administration and correct the wrongs of the current government and then hold elections along with the Assembly elections due in four States later this year.

When the BJP decided to align with the BSP after the last Assembly elections, one of the major factors that spurred it on was the fear of the Samajwadi Party chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav, being able to cobble together a majority if the BJP did not help the BSP do it.

A second factor was the Damocle's sword hanging on the head of the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K.Advani, and some other Ministers in the form of the Babri Masjid demolition case.

A less-than-friendly Government in U.P. could have resulted in the rectification of the technical flaw related to the trial in a special court.

At that time, the BJP was also confident that the BSP would oblige it by signing a deal for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections, but that has been firmly rejected by Ms. Mayawati.

And worse, the current graph of the BJP in Uttar Pradesh being what it is, the leadership is not at all sure of what electoral benefits it could extract from aligning with the BSP in 2004.

What is surprising is that some Central leaders, who had been strongly advocating a tie-up with the BSP, are now having second thoughts.

As for the State unit of the party, there is no love lost between the BJP and the BSP.

But whatever decision is taken will have to be done at the topmost level — the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Advani, and the party president, Venkaiah Naidu.

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