NEW DELHI, April 26: If the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, opted for a snap poll instead of supporting Jyoti Basu for the Prime Minister's post, the BJP leadership also decided not to make any effort to win over individual MPs or smaller parties to add to its tally of supporters.Though the President, K R Narayanan, had conveyed to the External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, on Saturday last that the BJP can be part of government formation process provided there is material change in the situation, the party felt it would be better to go to the people rather than exposing itself by indulging in any kind of horse-trading.Consequently, Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee did not take any step as it was felt that he would be compromising his position merely to save his government and this may even weaken BJP's election plank.It is authoritatively learnt that some intermediaries had conveyed to Vajpyee that if he issued a special appeal to the three-member Tamil Maanila Congress, a mid-term could still be averted. The BJP needed just 3 MPs to re-stake its claim. As the TMC had failed in its efforts to make Sonia Gandhi PM, the party was free to come to the aid of the government and also avert a snap poll.The Presidential communique today revealed that since the non-BJP parties had not succeeded in coming up with an alternatives government and there had been no accretion in the numbers supporting the BJP-led coalition, the Lok Sabha had to be dissolved.But the BJP leadership neither issued an appeal and nor it took any step to enhance its strength in the Lok Sabha. P Chidambaram (TMC) told The Indian Express that his party could not have done anything as ``nothing new had happened to change its stand'' after the confidence vote was defeated on April 17. Union Home Minister L K Advani had also called on former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar to impress upon him to re-consider his decision on Saturday. Shekhar also expressed the view that the BJP had not taken any policy initiative to change his stand. So, it was on Saturday night itself that the party leadership decided to go for the polls instead of wooing others. Top
