Determined to keep the coalition arrangement with Mayawati afloat, the BJP today restrained its state leaders from publicly criticising her. In return, they successfully persuaded Mayawati to meet a three-member committee of state BJP leaders, comprising Kalraj Mishra, Lalji Tandon and Vinay Katiyar, every fortnight for coordination and consultations. However, at the end of parleys between BJP and BSP — first at the house of Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and later at the residence of Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee — Mayawati had her way as regards the use of POTA against Raja Bhaiyya and his father, Uday Pratap Singh. Latest contention: Buddha plot LUCKNOW: The BJP and the BSP have again locked horns in Uttar Pradesh. This time over Chief Minister Mayawati’s move to acquire a plot of land, measuring 750 acres, near Kushinagar for the installation of a 500-ft bronze statue of Lord Buddha. Undeterred by the ongoing talks convened by the BJP high command in Delhi to sort out differences with the BSP, former excise minister and senior BJP leader Surya Pratap Shahi has hit out at Mayawati for trying to acquire the land on both sides of the Kashya-Deoria Road. “Thousands of farmers, who have no other source of income, will starve to death if their land is acquired,” Shahi said. At a meeting on January 24, Mayawati had formally agreed to provide the land free of cost to a private organisation, Maitreyi, for installing the statue and building a library, art gallery, museum and hospital on it. Shahi attacked the organisation, saying: ‘‘This organisation had also submitted a proposal to install a 500-ft Buddha statue at Bodh Gaya in 1996. The Government had even offered the land. But later, the organisation backed out.’’ (ENS) Despite the belligerence of BJP general secretary Rajnath Singh and state president Katiyar over the POTA invocation, the party leadership obviously did not find it worthwhile to rock their UP boat for the sake of Raja Bhaiyya who, after all, was trying to break the BJP. Mayawati told journalists later that the issue did not figure during the meeting. She asserted that the charges against Raja Bhaiyya under POTA would stay. Katiyar merely said: ‘‘Differences among us have been sorted out and the coalition government would continue for a full five years. POTA was not an issue. We will not allow the Samajwadi Party’s conspiracy to succeed. Those who try to weaken the government would themselves become weak.’’ BJP president M. Venkaiah Naidu insisted the use of POTA against Raja Bhaiyya was a state issue, which would be sorted out at the state level. However, according to sources close to the UP CM, Mayawati had her way after she pointedly told the BJP leadership that their own Thakur chief minister (that is, Rajnath Singh) could not get them more than 88 seats, and hence the party had no ground to claim that action against Raja Bhaiyya was eroding its Thakur vote bank. Mayawati also made it clear that it was more advisable for the BJP not to fritter away the gains accrued by her government on account of Raja Bhaiyya’s arrest. ‘‘She was of the firm opinion that the courts should decide the case,’’ a source close to her revealed. Speaking to the press, Mayawati also sought to play down the formation of a BJP panel in UP, arguing that it could not be called a ‘‘coordination committee’’. ‘‘These leaders have been meeting me off and on earlier too. In between, they stopped meeting me, for they were busy,’’ she contested. Seeking to put the blame on the media, the CM claimed the misunderstanding among the coalition partners had arisen because of ‘‘distortion’’ of statements of state BJP leaders. Sources said while a formal coordination committee was considered, the idea was dropped as there was apprehension that the move would give an opportunity to smaller partners of the coalition to demand a representation and to enlarge their role. Instead, while the BJP central leadership agreed they would not make any demand that would amount to a face-loss for Mayawati, the latter was persuaded to be more accommodating. Vajpayee is believed to have urged Mayawati to change her functioning so that the UP government is seen to be a single unit and not as a BJP-BSP alliance. That the publicly disgruntled Rajnath Singh faction would be kept under leash was evident from the fact that the former chief minister absented himself from today’s meeting where Tandon, Mishra and Katiyar were present. Among those also present was Murli Manohar Joshi. This is believed to have been done to ensure that Katiyar could be reined in. Joshi is a mentor of sorts for Katiyar, and is also known to be close to Mayawati and has been consistently rooting for the BJP-BSP alliance in UP. The other factor that seems to have gone in Mayawati’s favour is that the BJP is certainly not comfortable with the idea of dissolving the alliance and facing elections in UP.
