Though the freedom will initially be for the Janmashtami celebrations, the Chief Minister will be told to ensure that the MLAs would not be kidnapped and confined by the Vaghela group. The decision was taken yesterday at a meeting of the central office-bearers of the BJP.
Presided over by party president LK Advani, the meeting heard from Pramod Mahajan and Venkaiah Naidu a detailed account of how the BJP's carefully prepared plans to outwit rebel leader Shankersinh Vaghela misfired on Tuesday. Atal Behari Vajpayee, who is known to be unhappy over the handling of the party affairs in Gujarat, was not present as he was out of station. However, Rajasthan chief minister Bhiron Singh Shekhawat attended the meeting.
The meeting also decided to drop the proposal to bring the 94 loyalist MLAs to the capital for a parade before President Shankar Dayal Sharma. The idea was to emphasise beyond doubt that the BJP ministry led by Suresh Mehta still enjoyed a majority in the 180-strong House and to dismiss the government would be undemocratic.
After discussions, the office-bearers felt that the Raj Bhavan parade had already made this point sufficiently and it was not worth all the hazards of bringing them in chartered aircraft and protecting them from the predators of Vaghela.
The main reason for the release of the 18 MLAs was adverse publicity . Their continued detention will not be worth the loss of image for the party. The rival parties have begun to take political advantage of it in UP elections.
More over, Mahajan and Naidu, who were in charge of operations in Gujarat, also expressed a growing sense of mutiny among the detained MLAs due to their prolonged isolation, at a time when they themselves have agreed to support the party. It was pointed out that in all probability, at this stage the MLAs would not defect to the Vaghela camp as the Chief Minister had already made public his commitment to include each one of them in the cabinet in the next reshuffle.
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However, the office-bearers decided to leave the question of boycott of Parliament proceedings to the party's parliamentary group. After the meeting, BJP circles explained that disruption of proceedings was an accepted democratic procedure to make a point. So far, the Centre as such had not directly interfered in the affairs of Gujarat.
It was all done by the deputy speaker of the Assembly in collaboration with the opposition political leaders, it is admitted. But disruption of the House would create public opinion against dismissal of the BJP government in the state.
Another reason being cited by the leadership is that the disruption of the House would highlight the alleged political conspiracy by all non-BJP parties against the party. All this would give the right message on the eve of the UP elections, BJP circles explained.
Meanwhile, JD leader Biju Patnaik told newsmen that the BJP had in the morning agreed to halt their obstruction of the House during his discussions with them. In spite of this, the BJP MPs did not allow proceedings in both the houses yesterday as well.
At a briefing in Delhi, BJP leaders Venkaiah Naidu and Kashiram Rana yesterday demanded immediate amendment of the constitution to stop the misuse of Article 356. They said that in case of any dismissal of an assembly, it should be ratified by Parliament with a two-thirds majority. The BJP leaders appealed to federal parties to support the demand. According to Naidu, misuse of article 356 was as important to the federal parties as Hindutva was to BJP.