Congress president Sitaram Kesari called a number of Congress Working Committee members to meet him yesterday to impress on them the need to remain firm in the resolve to instal a Congress-led coalition in place of Gowdas government.
Some party leaders spoke of trying to find a way out of the impasse. AK Antony, for instance, met a large number of leaders in both the United Front and the Congress to press for this line. He seemed to have TMC GK Moopanar in mind as a compromise choice, some political leaders said.
K Karunakaran, another CWC member, has made public statements indicating that his party could settle for a compromise of this sort but that Gowda had to go.
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Karunakaran, K Vijaya Bhaskara Reddy and Jitendra Prasada, all CWC members, met Kesari together in the evening to review the situation.
Soon after that, Sharad Pawar, the partys Lok Sabha floor leader, and then Arjun Singh met Kesari.
In the morning, Kesari had asked Balram Jakhar over. The thrust in all these conversations apparently was that the Congress bid should not be in vain and the party leaders and MPs must remain united until Kesari was installed as the Prime minister.
Apart from meeting these leaders at his residence, Kesari also met a number of leading party MPs, including Pawar, at his office in Parliament in the morning. He has taken to going there every morning over the last few days.
The trend of MPs conversations with Kesari was to commit their backing to his plans and a plea that fresh elections be avoided.
Kesaris opponents such as Pawar and Rajesh Pilot have been publicly supporting Kesari but are organising campaigns among MPs that elections must be avoided by any means.