Psyching ripe Congmen, BJP style

NEW DELHI, November 4: The Bharatiya Janata Party has resorted to psychological warfare in Phase Two of its operation to split the Congress...

NEW DELHI, November 4: The Bharatiya Janata Party has resorted to psychological warfare in Phase Two of its operation to split the Congress party in the Lok Sabha and manoeuvre itself into power at the Centre.An artful public campaign is on to predict large-scale defections from the Congress in the hope that this will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Senior leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee set the ball rolling in Gwalior over the week-end by announcing at a press conference that he would soon be in a position to form an alternative government in Delhi with the support of breakaway Congress MPs. In typical BJP-style, other leaders picked up the thread. Party president L K Advani followed suit almost immediately and today, Madan Lal Khurana in Chandigarh and Krishan Lal Sharma in Delhi parroted the same lines.

Khurana went one step further and admitted that his party had changed its strategy from demanding early elections to trying to form a government of its own. He said that the BJP would seek support from all parties to pull down the government led by Prime Minister I K Gujral. Judging by the growing panic in the Congress about an impending split, the BJP’s tactics of applying pressure through atmospherics may be working.

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At the same time, it is quite clear that the initial expectations of a snowball effect after the developments in Uttar Pradesh have not quite materialised. There is turmoil in the Congress but no outward movement yet. Hence the decision by the BJP to use psychology instead of conducting backroom discussions which were leading nowhere. Significantly, Pramod Mahajan and Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, are both back in their respective states. This indicates that direct negotiations with anti-Kesri factions have been put on hold till the Congress pot boils over.

A major obstacle in effecting the hoped-for split is that there is no single leader of stature in the Congress around whom a breakaway group can coalesce. There are several disgruntled factions, all of whom are looking for other options but the BJP has not been able to find a Naresh Aggarwal in the Congress Parliamentary Party yet.

However, the BJP has certainly succeeded in setting the cat among the pigeons. The initial feelers to the party came from Congress MPs like Matang Singh and Suresh Kalmadi, neither of whom are in a position to lead a split.