The fate of the Mayawati government today remained uncertain with her arch rival, Mulayam Singh Yadav of the Samajwadi Party, finally managing to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi. According to sources, she heard him but didn’t commit herself to any course of action. The BJP, on the other hand, decided to crack the whip once more and suspend senior leader and MLA Ganga Bhakt Singh, who has been leading the rebellion. The party had been dithering on suspending Ganga Bhakt Singh primarily because of two reasons: it wanted to give him a long rope, given his stature; and, secondly, general secretary Rajnath Singh, sent to quell the rebellion, was hopeful of prevailing on him to retrace his steps. Since the dissident MLA went ahead with a meeting with the other rebels this evening, the party decided to act against him. He is the second leader to be suspended after Ramasheesh Rai, MLC. Senior BJP leader and Urban Development Minister Lalji Tandon warned the dissident MLAs that they would have to choose between ‘‘losing membership (of the House) and facing a mid-term poll’’. Tandon’s warning indicates that Chief Minister Mayawati is ready to go in for dissolution of the House to pave way for fresh polls if the going gets tough for her. Mulayam Singh Yadav, accompanied by CPI(M) leader Harkishan Singh Surjeet and SP general secretary Amar Singh, called on Sonia to seek her support for forming an alternative government in UP. Sonia, who was assisted by senior party leader Manmohan Singh during the half-hour meeting, heard them out but didn’t promise anything. Yadav said after emerging from the meeting: ‘‘BJP and BSP are busy looting the state of UP. They are using officials to stay in power. We have not caused the rebllion in the BJP, but we cannot close our eyes to it.’’ When asked to spell out what Sonia had told them, Yadav said, ‘‘You ask them (Congress).’’ Then, he turned to Amar Singh, who added, ‘‘It is for the Congress to decide.It was a good meeting. We are hopeful.’’ Surjeet, who apparently was instrumental in making Sonia agree to a meeting with Yadav, said the ongoing caste polarisation was bad for the country. ‘‘It must be checked,’’ he added. Yadav, obviously, wants the Congress to announce its support so that he could motivate one-third of the BJP MLAs to break away, but Sonia is weighing her options before taking the plunge. In the midst of SP claims of likely defections from the BJP, Chief Minister Mayawati and BJP general secretary Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi claimed it was a case of reverse traffic. Mayawati said in a statement that she was in constant touch with more than 24 SP legislators who could leave the party anytime. Naqvi told The Indian Express that several disgruntled SP and Congress MLAs had approached the BJP. Ridiculing the talk of the dissidents refusing to meet Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, he said there had been no such proposal. Regarding Yadav’s meeting with Sonia, the BJP leader said it did not worry the party because they had two months to form a coalition but could not do so. ‘‘There is no reason to believe that they would be able to do it now,’’ he added.
