IT'S been a dream week for the BJP. The Delhi High Court's order quashing the hawala charges against party president L.K. Advani no doubt paves the way for his return to Parliament. But what has come as a bigger shot in the arm for the BJP is the fall of the Deve Gowda government and the visible three-way rift in the 'secular camp'. The United Front versus the Congress, Sitaram Kesri versus Sharad Pawar in the Congress and the regional parties versus the national ones in the UF.
These developments have given a fresh impetus to the BJP's hopes of capturing power 10 months after the Atal Behari Vajpayee-led government failed to muster enough parliamentary support. On April 11, when Gowda moved the motion of confidence, it was the BJP which dictated the course of political events, leaving the secular forces split into rival camps.
Following the Congress' withdrawal of support to the UF government, on April 5-6 the BJP national executive pondered over the need to float a BJP-led front as the party's chances of coming to power on its own in the near future seemed remote. The suggestion which came from Vikram Varma, BJP leader in the Madhya Pradesh assembly, apparently got Vajpayee's endorsement as "worth considering". Optimism in this regard stems from the alliance the BJP had managed to work out with the BSP in Uttar Pradesh.
Vajpayee and Advani also okayed Akali Dal leader S.S. Barnala's attempts to solicit DMK support, now that the UF government had collapsed. Barnala, as governor of Tamil Nadu, had opposed the dismissal of the Karunanidhi-led DMK government in 1990. Besides, Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal is in touch with the Telugu Desam through its MP Renuka Chowdhary. The Asom Gana Parishad has also been approached. So, while the BJP has taken an official position that fresh elections are the only way out of the current crisis, it has not quite given up hopes of forming its own government. Consequently, the BJP's parliamentary wing has authorised Vaj-payee to decide the party's role in government formation. But his options seem limited. In his speech to Parliament on April 11, Vaj-payee said that the "secular interpretation of the 1996 mandate, that it was against the BJP, was wrong". The obvious implication was that an attempt by the BJP to gain power was not ruled out.
However, the BJP is dependent on a favourable response from the regional parties if it is to stake its claim. If this support does not materialise, the party's next course of action would be obvious: stick to the moral posture, we will rule only with the mandate and and the people are the ultimate masters. But given the growing schisms in other camps, the BJP has good reason to hope.
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