Vajpayee faces uphill task
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Oct 9 — The Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee faces an uphill task in constituting his Council of Ministers as he is still making efforts to convince the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) and the DMK to join the government.

With the TDP supremo, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, officially declaring that his party would support the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) Government from outside, sources close to the leadership said Mr Vajpayee was still pursuing the TDP to join the government.

The DMK, which has not made its stand known on joining the government yet, conveyed today that it would take a decision on joining the government at its Working Committee meeting in Chennai on October 12.

The DMK President and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Dr M. Karunanidhi, told newspersons here that the decision about joining the ministry would be taken at the 200-member working committee meeting of the party in Chennai.

Party sources said there was rethinking within the party on joining the Government as the DMK had to face the state Assembly elections in the next 15 months. One view is that joining the government would add to the anti-incumbency factor.

Apart from the two major supporting parties, the Prime Minister has also to take into account the newly emerged Janata Dal (United), which has too many ministerial aspirants. Also a majority of its topline leaders, including Mr George Fernandes, Mr Nitish Kumar, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan and Mr Sharad Yadav, are from Bihar and accommodating too many ministers from a single State could pose its own share of problems, sources said.

Within the BJP too, the Prime Minister is facing a tricky situation as he would be forced to omit some of the members who found a place in the Cabinet last time.

Delhi alone has thrown up five ministerial aspirants. Apart from the two former Chief Ministers, Mr Madan Lal Khurana and Mr Sahib Singh Verma, Union Minister, Mr Jagmohan, and giant killers Vijay Kumar Malhotra (who defeated the Congress leader, Dr Manmohan Singh) and Mr Vijay Goel (who won from Chandni Chowk for the second consecutive time) are in the fray.

The BJP is also taking stock of its poor performance in Uttar Pradesh and in the event of the Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, being changed he would have to be accommodated in the Cabinet too.

The BJP General Secretary, Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu, said the Prime Minister had not initiated any exercise on the formation of his ministry and it was not likely to start till he was formally elected leader of the BJP Parliamentary Party and the NDA tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the Central office bearers of the BJP, including all its five General Secretaries, the Vice Presidents and other senior leaders, met at the Prime Ministers house under the chairmanship of the party President, Mr Kushabau Thakre, and took stock of the post electoral developments.

It was decided that the BJP national executive would meet in the Capital on November 13 and 14 to discuss threadbare the election results and future strategy.

The meeting attended among others by the Union Home Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, leader of the Rajya Sabha, Mr Sikander Bakht and Union Minister, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, congratulated the Prime Minister, for leading the party to victory. The meeting expressed its gratitude to the people for reposing faith in the BJP and its allies.