NEW DELHI: Their plans to form a Government thwarted at the eleventh hour, enraged Third Front leaders went in a delegation to President Shanker Dayal Sharma last week and lodged a ‘strong protest over his invitation to ‘Atal Behari Vajpayee to form the new: ‘Government at the Center. ‘The main concern of the Front now j6todefeattbe BJP. On the floor of the ‘House when Vajpayee tricks to prove his majority, and to keep its own flock Of MPs united against the machine of the BJP and Congress. Front leaders are meeting soon to plan a nationwide protest.

‘The Front feels that Narasimha Rao deliberately delayed the despatch of the crucial letter of support to the President. This, they feel, led to the BJP being called to form the Government.

A section of Congress leaders, in ‘lading Sharad Pawar, Rajesh Pilot and Balram Jakhar, share the Front’s suspicions, This group feels that Rao is preparing the ground to try and form a Congress Government if Vajpayee fails to prove his majority.

The official Congress view was articulated by its spokesman V.N. Gadgil: “The precedent is that the Second largest group should be invited.

With the Front, its regional allies, and the Congress having decided to defeat the BJP during the trial of strength, the possibility of the Congress being invited to form the Government cannot be ruled out.

Impartial observers, however, point ‘court that Rashtrapati Bhavan had telephoned Vajpayee at 9 a.m., and asked him to call on the President at 2 p.m., = an indication that the President had already made up his mind to invite Vajpayee to form the Government. ‘The Congress letter of support, there~ fore, would have made no difference even if it had reached the President before 2 p.m.

Janata Dal stalwart Biju Patnaik shared this viewpoint, “It is no use blaming the President. We should have got our act together faster. It is the usual story of too little, too Iate.”

Other Front leaders, however, did not agree: CPI (M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet is reported to have had a heated exchange with the President.

Article extracted from this publication >>  May 22, 1996