NEW DELHI, March 25: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is hoping that the fear of elections will prevent the Opposition from insisting on a vote division when Atal Behari Vajpayee faces the confidence vote on Saturday. Still in a minority, the BJP has prepared a fallback plan in case its strategy does not succeed.In a clever move, the Vajpayee government quickly filled the two nominated MPs posts (for Anglo-Indians) today by appointing Lt General (retd) N Foley and Beatrix D'Souza. Both are naturally expected to vote in Vajpayee's favour.Numerically, this brings the BJP’s total committed strength up to 266. In reality, it is not so as Prem Singh Lalpura of the Akali Dal has refused to take his oath and Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia is too ill to attend Parliament. Also, the Speaker does not vote. His is a casting vote in case of a tie. This brings the BJP down to 263, perilously close to the Opposition's 261. The stand of the 13 MPs from the Telugu Desam Party and the National Conference (NC) will determinethe outcome.The fallback plan relies on Chandrababu Naidu and Farooq Abdullah of the TDP and NC respectively. BJP sources said that both party chiefs have informally conveyed that their MPs (11 of TDP, minus the Speaker, and two of NC) will vote in favour of Vajpayee, if necessary. If not, BJP leaders have agreed that they can abstain so that they have time to persuade their supporters before openly allying themselves with the BJP.BJP leaders said that a final decision would be taken on Friday night. Naidu is expected to arrive here late tonight to meet Vajpayee. However, no announcement is likely as he prefers to wait until the elections to the Rajya Sabha are over on Friday. Though Naidu’s Delhi visit was announced, his supporters were not sure whether he would be able to come as planned due to preoccupations with the state assembly session and the Rajya Sabha elections.As part of the strategy, BJP troubleshooters are busy contacting Independents and smaller parties which are seen as vulnerable.(The six-member Janata Dal, too, is not considered inviolate.) The aim is to persuade them to abstain. This would bring the total number of the House down so Vajpayee would need fewer votes to win the confidence motion. (He needs to get 50 per cent votes of those present and voting, not the total strength of the House.)Taking heart from the way the Speaker was elected, the BJP hopes that the Opposition will settle for a voice vote. It is argued that the Opposition might resort to this move in order to avoid an exposure of fissures in its ranks. For similar reasons and to express their anti-BJP stance, Opposition parties could stage a walk-out when the time for voting comes.Currently, the strength of the Lok Sabha is 541.
