UP rebels make PM lose voice

Political observers said Vajpayee lost his voice in Lucknow because he wished to avoid any embarrassment on account of questions on the dissidentce. He, in fact, had refused to meet the dissidents and also cancelled a BJP workers’ meeting at the RSS office.

Within hours of being refused a meeting with Vajpayee, the dissident legislators formed a ‘Save BJP Managing Committee’, led by five-time party MLA Ganga Bakht Singh. They said they were fighting against the ‘coterie’ which was leading the party to its doom and were not angling for ministerial berths.

Flanked by BJP Legislature Party Leader Lalji Tandon and state president Vinay Katiyar — Chief Minister Mayawati, perhaps forewarned or annoyed, did not turn up — the PM told the waiting reporters: ‘‘The condition of my throat is bad and the doctor has advised me to give it complete rest. But without your cooperation, it won’t be possible.’’ He promised to visit Lucknow later.

The dissidents blamed the ‘coterie’ for advising the PM to keep silent. ‘‘We are not fighting to get ministerial berths but our exercise is aimed at saving the party from being driven to political oblivion owing to a coterie of a section of state leaders which has kept our central leadership in the dark about the ground realities in the state,’’ said Ramasheesh Rai, a hardcrore BJP leader and party MLC.

‘‘We will hold any dialogue with the state leaders because it will be like lodging the complaint with the offender. The coterie is responsible for the mess the party finds itself in, and if the central leadership doesn’t wake up from its slumber now, the party will be ruined,’’ said Awadh Pal Singh Yadav, another party MLC.

The ‘coterie’ refers to Lalji Tandon, Rajnath Singh, Kalraj Mishra, Om Prakash Singh and Vinay Katiyar.

The dissidents are holding meetings daily. Because of rebel activity, the party had received a severe drubbing in the last assembly elections — its strength was reduced to 88 from 176.

The ‘Save BJP’ committe formed today has demanded that all ministers resign from the Mayawati ministry and the support to her government continued from outside.

It has also decided against replying to the show-cause notice issued by the beleagured party leadership to six party legislators on this

issue.

‘‘Let them take action and expel the legislators. The party will be left with only 25 to 30 legislators who had been made ministers from the BJP quota,’’ said Pal. The rebels have decided to hold a marathon meeting on October 23.