NEW DELHI: Efforts to resolve the tangle in the Janata Dal made some headway on Wednesday with party president S.R.Bommai calling Ajit Singh for breakfast on Wednesday. Bommai’s initiative follows the meeting of the political affairs committee of the JD two days ago which had urged Bommai to take steps in resolving the current crisis in the party after the four man committee of meditators had virtually admitted defeat.
Senior JD leader George Fernandez said he was optimistic about a breakthrough. The meeting between the two leaders obviously showed that some headway was made as they were parties to the dispute. Ajit Singh’s letter to V.P Singh last month calling for Bommai’s resignation among other things had plunged the party in a crisis
Neither Bommai nor Ajit Singh were available for comment and party observers felt this in itself was a sign of progress. JD sources said that Bommai discussed concrete proposals with Ajit Singh to end the deadlock in the party.
Meanwhile Fernandes disclosed in a chat with presspersons that former Lok Sabha Speaker. Rabt Ray was likely to be a candidate for the leadership of the Janata Dal Parliamentary Party He said V.P Singh appeared firm about his resignation from the leadership of the JDDP and an election for the leader was likely next Tuesday…
The executive of the JDPP is slated to meet here on Thursday and it will consider the resignation of V.P Singh. The weekly meeting of the JDPP normally held each Tuesday was called off this week as the party wanted more time to consider what to do about his resignation and the question of his successor if the resignation was to be accepted.
Though the name of Fernandes” is also mentioned as a possible” choice for the leadership of the JDPP he ruled this out on Wednesday. He said this was a” full time job and he had too many other commitments. Another possible choice could be Ram Vilas Paswan who resigned as” deputy leader last week in keeping with the one man one post principle.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 6, 1991
