The UPA and BJP are headed for another showdown inside and outside Parliament after Leader of Opposition L K Advani, upset with the way the Government hastily brought into Lok Sabha last Friday the Constitution (Amendment) Bill on granting Sixth Schedule status to the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC), rejected West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s request for support and made it known to Union Ministers Pranab Mukherjee and Shivraj Patil that his party would oppose the Bill in Rajya Sabha.

For the passage of a Constitution (Amendment) Bill, the Government needs BJP support to have a strength of 50 per cent of the total and two-third of the present members. The Opposition was in favour of referring the Bill — it seeks to amend the Sixth Schedule for creating the autonomous DGHC and to give it powers in matters of land, revenue and forests — to a Parliamentary Standing Committee.

In fact, when Buddhadeb, who was in Delhi to attend the CPM politburo meeting, dropped in at Advani’s home this evening, the Leader of Opposition told him he was most upset by the manner in which the Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha since it was not listed in the main business or revised business for the day and was introduced as supplementary business, that too on a Friday which by convention is reserved for private members bills.

It is learnt that Bhattacharjee told Advani he had warned the UPA not to rush the Bill. He was counting on his personal equation with Advani to try and convince him but the UPA clearly had other plans.