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'Allies may have forced Sonia to yield'

Virendra Pandit in Ahmedabad

Congress president Sonia Gandhi's comment about her party's willingness to form a coalition government at the Centre might have been due to pressure from her allies like the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani said today.

Talking to UNI soon after his arrival in Ahmedabad on a three-day election tour of Gujarat, he said, ''With this statement, the Congress has done a significant volte face and smashed to smithereens its only election plank of single party government alone providing stability, built up so assiduously after the Pachmarhi meeting.''

Advani pointed out that the main thrust of the Congress attack against the Atal Bihari Vajpayee regime was that it was a coalition government which could never be stable.

''Of course, no one had ever taken this claim seriously. After all, the Congress party itself was frantically attempting to find its own allies and had forged an alliance with (AIADMK chief J) Jayalalitha in Tamil Nadu, (RJD chief) Laloo Prasad Yadav in Bihar, Ajit Singh in Uttar Pradesh and the Republican Party of India in Maharashtra,'' he added.

''In the light of Mrs Gandhi's latest statement, the Congress party's derisive observations running down coalition governments have sounded utterly hollow and hypocritical,'' he said.

Also the fact that the Congress had ''virtually become a non-entity in two of the largest states of the country, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar'', had made all its talk of securing a majority on its own sound ludicrous. But the pretensions and rhetoric continued nevertheless, he added.

''For all practical purposes, the thrust of the Congress campaign that a vote for the Vajpayee government would invite instability and a vote for Sonia meant stability had effectively been punctured now.''

Acknowledgement of ground realities is always good for a meaningful debate on the polls, he said.

Reiterating his party's position on coalitions, Advani said the BJP had always maintained that in the country's present state of political development, one has to live with a coalition government.

''The BJP is consciously exerting to develop and promote a healthy coalition culture which promotes not only stability but also helps in building up national consensus on issues of vital importance to the country's interests,'' he said.

UNI

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