NDA set to form govt

Though his own party has not crossed the magic figure of 183 as yet, he is jubilant that his allies have given him the “big win.” The NDA’s tally is likely to touch 303 if four MPs of the National Conference join the front.

The top BJP leadership, L K Advani, Kushabhau Thakre, Jaswant Singh, Pramod Mahajan and three general secretaries — M Venkaiah Naidu, K N Govindacharya and Narendra Modi — unanimously decided that the newly elected MPs should give him the required authorisation.

This is being considered necessary so that the government is not subject to the whims of individual partners. The BJP MPs are meeting here on October 10 to elect Vajpayee as their leader. Later, the MPs of the allies will elect him as their leader and hand over their letters of support.

The President will be informed of Vajpayee’s election as leader and the NDA will stake claim to form the government only after the Lok Sabha is constituted by K R Narayanan by October 10.

The Prime Minister is keen that all parties of the NDA and BJP’s electoral allies (Telugu Desam and Trinamool Congress) be represented in his government. There are indications that most of them will join the government this time. But the TDP and the DMK are still non-committal on joining the government but they have been in touch with the PM and the BJP is hopeful that they may join.

Vajpayee has been assured of fullest cooperation in this regard by his own party chief and the RSS leadership. Haryana Chief Minister Om Prakash Chautala who met Vajpayee yesterday, has already agreed to lend “unconditional” support to him.

He does not expect much of a problem with the Shiv Sena either. The smaller parties with one, two or three members also are unlikely to cause any trouble.

DMK leader Murasoli Maran who has an excellent rapport with Vajpayee, gave an indication of this in Chennai today. When asked by reporters whether his party would seek berths in the Cabinet, Maran said: “There will be bargaining but no blackmail.”

Maran is tipped to be the Finance Minister in the Vajpayee. But it would depend on what TDP supremo Naidu is asking for his newly elected MPs. Vajpayee is likely to handle him largely on the ground that Naidu’s main stake is in Andhra Pradesh where he would have no difficulty in ruling for the next five years with the BJP backing him there.

But Vajpayee’s main difficulty would be his Janata Dal (United) partner which has six potential Cabinet rank ministers in the party with 18-odd MPs. George Fernandes, Nitish Kumar, Sharad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan, Digvijay Singh and Ramakrishna Hegde are front runners for the posts.

Since Bihar is to face Assembly polls in March 2000, the PM would have to take this factor in account.

The Biju Janata Dal is another constituent where things are not entirely under the control of Navin Patnaik. He is keen that more berths be given to keep his MPs happy. Orissa is also to go to polls in a few months time and the BJP-BJD would have to keep their flock together.

There are many contenders for the Railway portfolios within the JD (U) and Mamata Bannerjee of the Trinamool Congress has already hinted for it if she joins the government.

Since not many portfolios would be left for his own partymen in view of massive mandate secured by his allies, Vajpayee will have the tough task in hand to keep them in good humour. In Delhi alone, there are five contenders for a berth in the government: Jagmohan, Madanlal Khurana, Sahib Singh Verma, Vijay Goel, Vijay Kumar Malhotra.

The BJP is keen to keep the post of Speaker with it as G M C Balayogi’s inexperience cut short the life of the 12th Lok Sabha. If he had not allowed Orissa Chief Minister Giridhar Gamang to cast his vote in the Lok Sabha on April 17, the story would have been different. But all this would depend on Naidu who is in regular touch with the PM.