Rediff On The NeT: Kesri will use Laloo to bring down Gujral

Kesri will use Laloo to bring down Gujral

George Iype in New Delhi

Congress president Sitaram Kesri is fine-tuning his party's strategy to cash in on the imminent split in the Janata Dal. The Dal is expected to break up over the Laloo Prasad Yadav-led faction's decision to boycott the party presidential election on Thursday.

Congress sources said Bihar Chief Minister Laloo Yadav has Kesri's support in floating a regional party in Bihar. "The Laloo-led party will show more allegiance to the Congress than to the United Front government," a Congress leader claimed.

According to Congress leaders, ever since the Bihar chief minister was implicated and chargesheeted in the fodder scam, he has been in constant touch with Kesri, seeking his advice on how to tread the road ahead.

Kesri and Laloo Yadav are considered close to each other. Whenever the Bihar chief minister is in Delhi, he unfailingly pays a visit to the Congress chief's Purana Quila home. Tariq Anwar, Kesri's political adviser, however, disclaims any links with the JD crisis, saying, "the mess that the JD finds itself in is of its own making and the Congress president has no role in it."

While insisting that "Kesriji's role in the country's politics today is not to split any other party, but to strengthen the Congress," Anwar, also a Bihari, said the JD war could result in the fall of the Gujral government in due course.

Asked whether the Laloo Yadav faction has Kesri's blessings to form a regional party, Anwar said: "Kesriji is not a leader who encourages defections and splits. But in politics which faction aligns with whom is always a suspense."

UF leaders know only too well that Kesri holds the key to the 13-party coalition's future. They also know that fresh from his spectacular victory in the party polls Kesri is waiting for an opportune time to bring down the Gujral regime and form a Congress-led government.

Laloo Yadav expects at least 18 Lok Sabha members and eight Rajya Sabha members -- all from Bihar -- will join him to form a regional party. The group also expects considerable support from the JD's Karnataka unit.

Among Gujral's ministers, Laloo Yadav has the backing of Kamla Sinha, Kanti Singh and Captain Jai Narain Nishad.

Kesri loyalists say his plan is not to immediately withdraw support to the UF regime, but to wait till Gujral is weakened and then slowly rope in Front partners to join a Congress government, perhaps in six months's time.

Apart from the Laloo Yadav faction, Kesri expects support from Mulayam Singh Yadav's Samajwadi Party, G K Moopanar's Tamil Maanila Congress and M Karunanidhi's Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam in his bid to form a government.

Meanwhile, hectic efforts continued in New Delhi to find a solution to avert a split in the Janata Dal.

Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Laloo Yadav's aide, met former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, Railway Minister Ram Vilas Paswan and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Srikant Jena -- all of them opponents of the Bihar CM -- to work out an amicable solution to the crisis.

Singh told reporters that there is still a chance of a settlement to the crisis. "We are talking to each other, expecting that some kind of rapprochement will work out within a day," he said.

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