Sound of UP crash is music to many

NEW DELHI, Feb 21: Uttar Pradesh Governor Romesh Bhandari's dismissal of the Kalyan Singh Government has drawn swift reactions from all part...

NEW DELHI, Feb 21: Uttar Pradesh Governor Romesh Bhandari’s dismissal of the Kalyan Singh Government has drawn swift reactions from all parties, with Congress president Sitaram Kesri stating tonight that state party leaders had been authorised to take a decision on the issue. They will decide what stand the party should adopt on supporting the new government headed by Jagdambika Pal, Kesri remarked.

Replying to a question on the political developments in UP, Kesri said in New Delhi that “even without our support, the new government has achieved majority in the state.” Asked whether the party would extend support to the new government, he said, “I have left this matter to be decided by the state leadership.” What happened in the state clearly showed that Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was “incompetent and inefficient to run a government,” he said.

Meanwhile, West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu tonight welcomed the dismissal of Kalyan Singh government in Uttar Pradesh and said the United Front haddemanded it earlier. Giving his reaction on the political development in UP, Basu claimed that BJP had indulged in all sorts of “unethical practices” to form the government at Lucknow.

The veteran Marxist leader said he had already discussed the present political situation in UP with United Front convenor Chandrababu Naidu and CPI-M general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet. The Congress MLAs who had earlier gone with BJP to form government have realised their mistake and come back, he said. “It is well and good,” the chief minister said.

In Chennai, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK president M Karunanidhi tonight said the fall of the Kalyan Singh Government in Uttar Pradesh proved that the BJP was attempting to deceive’ the people by claiming that it could provide a stable government at the Centre. In a brief statement here, he said that the BJP, which got a overwhelming mandate in Gujrat in 1995 was unable to provide a stable government, forcing elections to the state Assembly. Describing theKalyan Singh government as a bundle of contradictions’ and the party’s plank of stability as a tall claim’, Karunanidhi urged the electorate to understand at least now that the questions raised by the United Front about BJP’s capability to provide a stable government at the Centre were justified.

In Calcutta, senior Congress leader Manmohan Singh said today that the BJP had no chance of winning support from the people in the remaining Lok Sabha constituencies after the UP debacle. Talking to mediapersons, he wondered how a party incapable of managing a state would be able to run the affairs of the country. Meanwhile, Samata Party president George Fernandes said the decision went against the accepted Constitutional practice of testing the majority of a government on the floor of the House. In Rajkot, BJP spokesperson Sushma Swaraj expressed shock over the dismissal and said it was a “game plan” of the Governor and the Congress. It is part of a big plot to prevent the BJP from coming into power at theCentre, she alleged. Ramkrishna Hegde’s Lok Shakti demanded recall of Governor Romesh Bhandari. Describing the dismissal as a “murder of democracy”, the party sought the intervention of the President. Meanwhile, the BJP today demanded President K R Narayanan’s immediate intervention’ in Uttar Pradesh to prevent any grave Constitutional fraud’ being played on the nation. In a strongly worded statement, BJP vice president Sundar Singh Bhandari said the UP Governor had committed a series of Constitutional misdemeanours in the past.