Asked how the Vajpayee government expected to muster the required number in the lower house if Jayalalitha carried out her threat, Rana said the BJP would sail through by enlisting the support of smaller groups and parties. However, he added, the BJP would not encourage any horse-trading.

Criticising Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and AIADMK chief Jayalalitha for trying to destabilise the BJP government, the Union minister said they basically wanted to topple this government to form their own. But the BJP would ultimately benefit from that, he claimed.

Earlier, after the bhoomipujan ceremony for the Rs 7 crore-Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel New Sub Marketyard at Sayajipura on NH-8 this morning, Rana said both the Central and the State state governments had taken steps to ensure farmers got reasonable return on their produce.

Rana said that the Central government had recently announced a plan to help Agricultural Produce Market Committees to construct cold storages so that farmers could store their produce and sell it when it fetch higher prices in the open market.

To solve the shortage of urea fertiliser, the minister said the Centre had resolved to upgrade the manufacturing capacity of four urea plants -- including the one at Hazira in Gujarat -- and set up a Cotton Technology Mission at a cost of Rs 600 crore to improve the cotton production in the country.

Cooperation Minister Ramanbhai Vora said the state government had set up the APMC in 168 talukas out of the 248 to check the exploitation of farmers at the hands of traders. It was also being planned to allow customers to make purchases from farmers directly through the APMCs so that farmers could get better prices for their produce.

APMC director Upendrasinh Gohil said that 456 shops would be constructed in the new marketyard.

Among others who spoke on the occasion were Tourism Minister Suryachandra Mehta, Lok Sabha MP Jayaben Thakkar and MLA Madhu Srivastava.