Though the United Front's fate appeared to be sealed with Prime Minister Inder Gujral telling Congress president Sitaram Kesri on Monday evening that the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham would not be dropped from the UF government, the Congress could not reach a decision at its Working Committee meeting late on Monday night.
"We discussed the letter in detail, but deferred a decision till tomorrow," CWC member Pranab Mukherjee told Rediff On The NeT. "We will certainly take a decision tomorrow."
Hectic activity was visible at Kesri's home soon after the prime minister's letter was delivered at 1900 hours to the Congress president by Vikram Misri, a PMO official. Mukherjee and Sharad Pawar were among the first Congress leaders to arrive for discussions.
That the Jain Commission had unfairly indicted the DMK and therefore, there was no justification for the United Front to drop the party's ministers from the United Front government.
With the Front rejecting the Congress demand, Kesri now has no option but to withdraw support to the ruling coalition. This will result in the
fall of the Gujral government, the likely dissolution of the eleventh
Lok Sabha, and a mid-term poll.
"The country is moving inexorably towards a mid-term poll," one senior Cabinet minister, who did not want to be identified, said on Monday night. "The prime minister's letter is a polite no, keeping the door ajar for people who are interested in reasonableness."
Lok Sabha Speaker Purno A Sangma met the President for 40 minutes on Monday evening. A delegation of "young" MPs from the Congress, Janata Dal and Haryana Vikas Party -- led by T Subbirami Reddy, the wealthy MP from Andhra Pradesh -- also met the President this evening.
The MPs are understood to have discussed the possibility of a mid-term poll with K R Narayanan who advised them to impress on their respective party leaderships what a snap poll could cost the nation. Though Reddy denied that the MPs were acting on the Bharatiya Janata Party's behalf, the Congress leadership has reportedly decided to issue show cause notices to its MPs for meeting the President without the party's consent.
Earlier, Gujral met Sangma for about half an hour following the speaker's decision to adjourn the Lok Sabha sine die.
Home Minister Indrajit Gupta and Parliamentary Affairs Minister
Srikant Jena also met the speaker in his chamber.
One senior minister said the adjournment of the Lok Sabha sine die was a development which the government had not anticipated.
Just hours earlier, the prime minister had declined to give any indication on sending his much-awaited reply to Kesri's letter.
''I am a silent person,'' was his cryptic reply to a volley of
questions by the media at the Central Hall of Parliament in the morning. He was non-committal on when he would send the letter at all.
Tara Shankar Sahay, George Iype, UNI
The Congress Crisis, November 1997
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