NEW DELHI, Nov 7: Gujarat chief minister Dilip Parikh flew in late tonight for crucial meetings tomorrow with Congress president Sitaram Kesri and Congress Working Committee (CWC) member Pranab Mukherjee, expected to decide the fate of the State Government.The meetings have assumed vital proportions with their outcome having the potential to change the immediate course of Indian politics. Kesri is expected to reach here from Bangalore by 11 am and his discussions with Parikh are slated for the afternoon. The duo will thrash out the complex situation in Gujarat where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is breathing down on the Congress and the Rashtriya Janata Party (RJP) to force a split in the combine and form its own government.All eyes currently are on November 13 when Parikh will attempt to win the vote of confidence with suspicion dominating the mood in all parties. ``Our immediate priority is to see that 13th passes off smoothly,'' said Mukherjee today. That, however, might not be an easy task given the ambitions ruling the decisions of Congress MLAs in Gujarat.When asked what the Congress plans to do to keep its flock together, Mukherjee said: ``You see, one puts up a fence to protect the crop. But if the fence eats the crop, what can we do.'' It succinctly explains the dilemma of the Congress which is fearing a repeat of Uttar Pradesh in Gujarat.Should the party not be able to hold its 44 MLAs together, it will lose face immensely at the Centre. The BJP has already made its moves clear by extending an open invitation to Congress MPs to walkover to the Right. BJP president L K Advani made the offer in public and party spokesperson Yashwant Sinha declared today that his party has launched ``a no-holds barred campaign'' to oust the Dilip Parikh government on the floor of the House. The focus, therefore, is on the Congress which has a problem with the JD(G) group within its CLP.This group is apparently divided between Urmilaben Patel and Chhabildas Mehta and the Congress is hoping to keep the rebel numbers down to a minimum should it occur. Mehta is keen that the Congress pull down Parikh in the manner of Shanker Singh Vaghela, something the party is not keen on.There is talk of the Congress joining the RJP government, should it survive on the 13th, but this depends on the Gujarat Congress. ``My hunch is that we will not split. We are trusting them and they are the ones who will decide the future course of action. One or two persons cannot take the liberty of speaking on behalf of everybody,'' Mukherjee added.The ``one or two'' reference is to Mehta who is giving the Congress high command trouble at the moment. Sinha said his party was in touch with ``like-minded'' legislators and is hoping to persuade Mehta and his 17 supporters in the Congress to either vote against the Parikh government or abstain on the 13th.Senior BJP leaders are camping in Gandhinagar overseeing their campaign. Said former Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, at whose residence party leaders are holding regular meetings, ``hum paanch pandav hi ye kaam dekh rahen hain (the five of us - Kanshiram Rana, Suresh Mehta, Vajubhai Vala, Ashok Bhatt and Patel - are supervising things). He claimed the government would fall as Parikh wouldn't be able to prove his majority.According to a report, another ex-Chief Minister Suresh Mehta had a secret meeting with at least two legislators at a private guest house in the coastal town of Kodinar in Saurashtra. Yet another BJP sympathiser is said to have hosted a meeting between the BJP and some RJP legislators.The BJP is said to be firm on two counts: the breakaway group, if any, will not be assimilated and the party will be associated with the government only as its head, not as an outside prop. This is the party's second shot at power in recent times following the failure of the coup attempt through Vaghela's minister Atmaram Patel. The JD(G), which the BJP sees as a stepping stone to power now, was integrated into the Congress in 1992. In the 1995 polls, the Congress won 46 seats of which 26 went to JD(G) leaders. The braek-up* BJP: 76 (status of 7 is disputed in High Court)* RJP: 46* Cong:44* Ind: 15* Vacant:1* Total: 182The key are the 44 Congress MLAs. These include 26 of the JD(G) group led by Chhabildas Mehta and Urmilaben Patel. The BJP is hoping to get 17 to abstain or vote against the Parikh government. Mehta currently has support of 8. Congress is hoping to keep at least 36 to 40 together on Nov 13.
