Kalyan Singh, the BJPs candidate for the chief ministership of Uttar Pradesh, was in the dark about the arrangement between his party and the BSP until Wednesday morning, a few hours before the deal was announced to the world.
He was initially against the deal, since he was not convinced that Mayawati would vacate the chief ministers chair for him after six months. He was working on his own gameplan to become the Chief Minister and had hoped to make it soon after Holi, one of Singhs confidants disclosed.
He said the breakway Congress group in UP led by Naresh Agarwal was ready to support the BJP, but their number was insufficient. The BJP needed the support of about a dozen more MLAs. Besides, each of the 22 Congress MLAs wanted a ministerial berth, to which Singh did not agree. However, Singh was active in garnering support from some independents and smaller parties.
Singh was persuaded to agree to share power with Mayawati by senior party leaders on Tuesday night. They argued that the partys bete noire in UP, defence minister Mulayam Singh Yadav, was scheming to get himself installed as Chief Minister after embarrassing Kalyan Singh.
According to a party leader close to Singh, the party leaders told the former UP Chief Minister that some United Front leaders had sent messages earlier in the day to some BJP leaders, including a party general secretary, that UP Governor Romesh Bhandari was ready to invite Singh to form the government.
They told him it was obviously a plan hatched by Yadav to prevent them from allying with the BSP. Yadav was perhaps betting on Singh failing to prove his majority, without support from the BSP.
Once Bhandari had given Kalyan Singh a chance to form a government and it had failed to prove majority support, Bhandari could have called the Samajwadi Party, the second largest in the house, to form a government.
It was the suspicion that Yadav planned to outsmart the BJP by luring Singh that made Singh fall in line with the plans of his leaders, AB Vajpayee and LK Advani, to ally with the BSP.
They had worked out the coalition arrangment in complete secrecy but, according to the BJP leader close to Singh, Yadav got to know even before Singh was let in on it.
Yadav spoke to Prime Minister HD Deve Gowda and prepared the plan to thwart the coalition, the BJP leader said.
Senior Samajwadi Party leaders refute this version of Wednesday mornings events, but it was reported at the BJPs parliamentary board meeting on Wednesday, at which the new alliance was unveiled for the first time to most BJP leaders.
Singh, who had been told of the deal on Tuesday night, attended the meeting. It decided to act fast so that everything was done before the Parliament went for a month recess from Saturday. Citing their version of the Yadav gameplan, some BJP office-bearers argued that delay could have given the UF a chance for mischief.
Some party leaders also argued that BSP general secretary Mayawati should be allowed to take on the tricky task of dealing with Yadav. That cut ice with Singh. It is the fight for supremacy between the BJP and the SP and the BSP would be used to carry on the BJPs fight, they argued.
BJP leaders also told Singh that both Ram and Mayawati had promised to be more accommodative.
That Singh would have a Speaker of his choice was a double assurance that he would not be ignored when his turn came, a BJP office-bearer said.
Mayawati is reported to have told the BJP leaders that she would do everything to see Yadav punished for his alleged role in the state guest house incident on June 2, 1995.
Samajwadi party affiliated anti-social elements were alleged to have attacked the guest house which lodged Mayawati after the BSP withdrew support from the SP-BSP coalition government.
Singh had earlier opposed any truck with the BSP and argued that the BJP should either form its own government or face fresh elections. It was Singhs objections that had forced the BJP drop its idea of outside support to the BSP to form government.
