NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 28: The Congress gameplan of creating a division among the partners of the ruling National Democratic Alliance on the RSS issue suffered a setback today when the partners said they were solidly behind the Government on this issue.The four major parties in the NDA, the Telugu Desam, Trinamool Congress, Samata Party and the JD-U, told Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that even if the motion was allowed to be brought under rule 184 and put to vote in the Lok Sabha, they would ensure its defeat.At a specially convened meeting of the NDA partners called by Vajpayee this morning, Railway Minister Mamata Bannerjee is said to have told the PM: ``We will not allow the government to fall on the issue. We are with you. We know their (the Opposition's) gameplan.''TDP's Yerran Naidu, Defence Minister George Fernandes and Civil Aviation Minister Sharad Yadav expressed similar sentiments at the meeting. They said they ``fully understood'' the ``designs'' of the Congress.However, they felt that the decision given by the Speaker on the issue last week must be respected by all concerned. Since the Speaker had already rejected an adjournment motion on the issue, he should not be made to change his own decision. It was a question of the prestige of the institution of the Speaker, they claimed. But at the same time, the House should not be held to ransom by a section. If the Congress was unwilling for a discussion under 193, it should be allowed to bring it under rule 184.``We will collectively defeat the motion,'' was the refrain at the meeting leading Vajpayee to thank the allies. Though the allies also said that they would express their views during the course of the debate in their own way, there was no question of their not supporting the BJP, they said.When contacted, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan confirmed that the issue did crop up at today's meeting with the PM and the allies had lent their complete support to the government irrespective of the rule under which the motion is brought before the House.
