BJP UP MLAs return empty-handed

The BJP high command listened to the complaints of its UP legislators today, but sent them back after making it clear that there was no ques...

The BJP high command listened to the complaints of its UP legislators today, but sent them back after making it clear that there was no question of disturbing the coalition with the BSP in the state.

The day-long exercise, which started with a five-hour session at the residence of party president M. Venkaiah Naidu, concluded at tea with Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee at his official residence in the evening.

General secretary Pramod Mahajan later said that with the complaints mostly pertaining to the working of BJP ministers in the Mayawati Government, the high command had decided to convene a meeting of all ministers to hear their views.

The party would ask its ministers to take up the matters requiring a Cabinet approval with CM Mayawati. The leadership directed the state unit to convene legislature party meetings every month.

Mahajan disclosed that four dissident MLAs, Kovid Kumar Singh, Ravindra Pundir, Mayankeshwar Singh and Narendra Verma, had written letters to Naidu expressing their regrets for having damaged the party, promising not to repeat it and pledging to serve the party sincerely. However, speaking at the meeting, all of them complained of a regional and caste imbalance in the BJP selection of its ministers.

Vajpayee told the 100-odd MLAs and MLCs that they had to learn 8216;8216;the art of working in a coalition.8217;8217; The arrangement had its own constraints, but there was no running away from it.

8216;8216;We are running a coalition of 23 parties at the Centre,8217;8217; he said, pointing out that 8216;8216;the CPIM has been doing so in West Bengal for over two decades and even the Congress has coalition governments in Kerala and Maharashtra.8217;8217;

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Sources said Vajpayee told the UP leaders that given the composition of the UP Assembly, the state would have to be placed under governor8217;s rule in the absence of a popular government.

Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, who was present for an hour, said in his address to UP legislators that the BJP could ill-afford to neglect the state. 8216;8216;The state sends over 80 members to the Lok Sabha and the present state of the Congress is only on account of its decline in UP.8217;8217;

He rejected the theory that the BJP was losing its base due to its alliance with the BSP. He pointed out that the BJP, which ruled the state earlier, had slid from the first slot to the third slot in the last assembly elections. 8216;8216;Whom do you blame for this?,8217;8217; he asked, adding that there was no tie-up between the BJP and the RSS then.

Mahajan set the tone for discussions by declaring at the outset that no member should criticise Mayawati.

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Only one of the 50 speakers raised the issue of Ayodhya. 8216;8216;You build the temple and get 300 Lok Sabha seats,8217;8217; he said.