Exodus rattles Congress
George Iype in New Delhi
The Congress seems to be slipping into a stupor as the exodus of party MPs continues.
Four prominent Lok Sabha members, led by its Pune MP Suresh Kalmadi, today quit the Congress, saying the party has become a farce under Sitaram Kesri.
Kalmadi and the other three MPs -- Anadi Charan Sahu, Mohan S Delkar and Gopal Tandel -- are expected to join the Bharatiya Janata Party soon. Following suit in all likelihood are another set of Congress leaders led by party MP Praful Patel.
Kalmadi told Rediff On The Net that he is resigning from the primary membership of the party because "Kesri is now presiding over the liquidation of the Congress.
''I can no longer be associated with a man whose directionless leadership has disintegrated the Congress."
Kalmadi would decide the future course of action "very soon".
As more and more leaders from the Congress, the Janata Dal and the Samajwadi Party desert their parent parties, the BJP is on a roll as most of these leaders are expected join the saffron camp on the eve of the Lok Sabha elections.
BJP sources said several Congress MPs have expressed 'keenness' to join the saffron brigade if they are assured tickets to contest the ensuing elections.
These Congress MPs -- most of them from the north Indian states -- had established contact with the BJP leadership last month, when the party staked claim to form the government after Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral resigned.
Commenting on the developments, Congress leaders today conceded that the biggest blow to the party was the departure of Dilip Singh Bhuria. Considered one of the strongest leaders from Madhya Pradesh, Bhuria had won five consecutive Lok Sabha elections from the tribal constituency of Jhabua. He is the first sitting Congress MP to join the saffron brigade.
Assured that many more Congress MPs and prominent leaders from other parties would switch over to the BJP, the saffron leadership is now gearing up to unveil their price catches at regular intervals.
In the past fortnight, the BJP's well-crafted strategy has been either to lure the Congress leaders who have been out of favour with Kesri or to split the party in states like West Bengal and Tamil Nadu.
So far a number of anti-Kesri leaders like Bhuria, P R Kumaramangalam, Aslam Sher Khan, Ayub Khan, Bhagwat
Jha Azad and D C Thakur have switched over to the BJP.
As for the Janata Dal, the prominent deserter is Som Pal, a close associate of former prime minister V P Singh.
Besides, five Bahujan Samaj Party MPs have abandoned Kanshi Ram.
"We are happy that many Congressmen have finally realised the importance of being in the BJP, the only true national party in the country," said BJP vice-president K L Sharma said.
Denying that the BJP is trying to destabilise the Congress by engineering splits, Sharma said, "We are compelling them to join us. Many are coming to us because they are fed up with a demoralised Congress leadership," he told Rediff On The Net. "It is heartening that many of those leaders are Muslims."
After striking an alliance with the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazagham in Tamil Nadu, the BJP has been trying to rope in Mamata Bannerjee's Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.
Rattled by the developments, Kesri's supporters now suspect former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's widow Sonia's hand in the developments.
Now abroad on a vacation, Sonia has not been kind to Kesri's leadership of the party. Kesri's aides allege that Sonia is clandestinely engineering the defections. Her objective: to ensure that the BJP does not harass her family in case it comes to power.
Sonia is reportedly feeling insecure as the second set of secret Bofors papers are expected to arrive in India by the time a new government is
formed at the Centre.
EARLIER REPORTS:
Kesri incurs Sonia's wrath
Sonia breaks her silence for Mamata
Mani Shankar Aiyar 'snaps ties with Kesri'
BJP ties up with AIADMK
Sonia spells trouble for Gujral
India will not get last set of Bofors papers till year-end
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