Right from Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda down, leaders of the Front expressed satisfaction over the fact that the BJP had not fared well enough to secure a majority. These included the Left parties, who said that every effort should now be made to instal a secular government. But all of them were aware that the exercise would not be easy.
When members of the steering committee gathered at the Prime Ministers residence, among the notable absentees were the committees convenor N Chandrababu Naidu, whose flight was delayed from Hyderabad. He had decided to cancel rather than arrive late, since he needed in any case to be in the state for the byelections.
West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, who is arriving from London today, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, who is busy with local bodies elections in the state, and Assam Chief Minister P K Mahanta, whose wife suffered injuries from a fall, were also absent.
Front sources said their absence would not actually be missed since in any case they were not involved in the running of the Deve Gowda government as much as they had expected.
Since the only agenda before the committee meeting was the Uttar Pradesh elections, the decision had basically to be taken by the Samajwadi Party, the Janata Dal, the Left parties and the Congress (T). The chiefs of each of these parties was present.
Even among these, the focus was on Mulayam Singh Yadav, whose party has secured the most seats among the non-BJP parties, but whose proclivities towards the Mayawati and the Bahujan Samaj Party could stand in the way of formation of a non-BJP government.
Will he agree to the Front extending support to a Mayawati-led government, is the crucial question before the committee.
Clearly, a section of his party feels that individual interests should not come in the way. According to senior Samajwadi Party leader Beni Prasad Verma, both the non-BJP groups (United Front and the Congress-BSP alliance) had fought to defeat communal forces, and now both should join hands to prevent the BJP from forming the government.
In this, we should forget our personal, individual interests, and work for the formation of a non-BJP government, Verma told Business Standard.
He denied making a statement attributed to him by a news agency on Tuesday that the Samajwadi Party would pull out of the Front if Deve Gowda agreed to extend support to Mayawati.
