Manipur BJP MLAs ready to stake claim

Sharad Gupta

New Delhi, May 27: Waiting for an audience with the BJP leadership for the past one week, the party’s legislators from Manipur have decided to stake their claim to form the government with the help of allies if they don’t get a favourable response from the Central leadership tomorrow.

The BJP has 26 MLAs in the House of 57 but the party gets a clear majority by including MLAs of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), Janata Dal (L) and Federal Party of Manipur. All of them have come together to form the Progressive Democratic Alliance.

In a show of strength, 36 MLAs of the PDA held a meeting at Manipur Bhawan in Delhi today to reiterate their demand that they be allowed to form a government in the state.

They have, however, been restrained by the central leadership because of apprehensions of spoiling the BJP’s relations with the Samata Party, a major constituent of the NDA at the Centre as well as in Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand.

The BJP legislators defied the party ship to topple the Samata-led government in the state last week. If they don’t get a positive response from their central leadership by tomorrow, they seem all set to approach the Manipur Governor to stake claim to form a government within the next few days, said a party MLA from the state.

Refused an audience by BJP chief Jana Krishnamurthy, the PDA legislators have been lobbying with senior NDA leaders such as Sharad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan. They called on Yadav once again on Saturday night, urging him to use his influence in the NDA to get them a favouravle decision.

Today, they called on NCP leader P.A. Sangama, who like Yadav and Paswan, opposed imposition of President’s Rule in Manipur. The MLAs also wrote separate letters to Krishnamurthy, supporting their leader R.K. Dorendra Singh’s demand to form a BJP-led government in the state.
Their demand is likely to be discussed at a joint meeting of the central leaders of the BJP and the Samata Party with state leaders to resolve the impasse after the defeat of the Koijam ministry. State BJP president M. Bharat Singh and BJP legislature party leader R.K. Dorendra Singh will represent the PDA in tomorrow’s meeting.