Senior BJP leaders L K Advani, Atal Behari Vajpayee and Murli Manohar Joshi will be camping at Lucknow to explore all possibilities of forming a government with the BJPs participation. Vajpayee has cancelled his New York tour to be on hand during these crucial days.
Before leaving for Lucknow, Advani yesterday had an informal meeting with party leaders Sikander Bakht, Kushabhau Thakre, Sushma Swaraj and others. They reached a consensus that a coalition government with the BSP would be the most beneficial for the BJP.
The central leaders would try to persuade the state leaders to accept this line of thinking, which the state leaders had opposed when it was initially mooted. The state leaders had hinted they would prefer to sit in Opposition benches.
A BJP-BSP government would prevent the BSP from falling into the lap of the Samajwadi Party, prevent the BJPs arch-enemy Mulayam Singh Yadav from forming a government and, above all, send a social message by bridging the Brahmin-Dalit divide, a senior BJP leader who attended the meeting said.
A leader close to Advani disclosed that Congress MLA Pramod Tiwari, claiming the support of about 20 Congress MLAs, has sent feelers to Advani about his groups willingness to join a BJP government. This posiblity would be explored only when the BSP failed to reciprocate the BJPs offer as it would not like to antagonise both the SP and the BSP and provide them an opportunity to come together later, he said.
Meanwhile, a senior BJP office-bearer described BSP chief Kanshi Rams statement that the BSP would sit in Opposition rather than take support from the BJP as public gestrue.
He pointed out that vice-president Sunder Singh Bhandari had also stated that the BJP would not align with the BSP. These were all public gestures and they would be resolved, he added.