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Stung by the central Bharatiya Janata Party leadership's refusal to meet them on Friday, Progressive Democratic Alliance legislators led by Dorendra Singh began looking at various options, in a bid to form the government in Manipur.
BJP chief K Jana Krishnamurthy had on Friday morning refused to meet the 32 Manipur legislators, who had arrived in Delhi on Thursday night.
Party general secretary Narendra Modi later met four of them and said they should go back, and return to New Delhi on May 28, when the National Democratic Alliance decides what is to be done in the state following the collapse of the Samata Party-led Radhabinod Koijam government.
The Koijam government's collapse was triggered when the BJP MLAs defeated it on the floor of the assembly. Ever since, the newly-formed PDA (it has 23 BJP legislators out of the 32) has been trying to form the government, but the BJP leadership has rebuffed this move in fear of offending the Samata Party.
There was a new twist to the Manipur crisis when some PDA legislators, formerly in the Congress, established contact with senior Congress general secretary Ambika Soni.
While Soni was not available for comment, Congress leaders maintained a studied silence.
"All kinds of things are being spread by the BJP to defame us," observed party spokesman S Jaipal Reddy, declining to elaborate.
But that did not prevent Dorendra Singh and Manipur Assembly Speaker S Dhananjoy Singh from knocking at the doors of other parties in their search for forming the state government.
According to PDA legislators, Dorendra Singh and Dhananjoy Singh met Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar and Janata Dal-United leader Mohan Prakash, to explore the possibility of forming an alternative government in Manipur.
Apprehensive Samata Party leaders also maintained a silence on the issue of the PDA legislators seeking to form the government in Manipur with party spokesman Shambhu Srivastava asserting, "I have nothing to say."
In private, Srivastava iterated that the Samata Party would walk out of the National Democratic Alliance if a BJP-led ministry was formed in Manipur.
The PDA legislators also announced that they would meet President K R Narayanan.
Their staying put (despite Modi's exhortation that they should return to Manipur and come back on May 28) here and their holding parleys with other parties seems to be a pressure tactic mounted on the BJP, to do the PDA's bidding.
Holed up at the Manipur House here, the PDA legislators refused to meet reporters.
When a persistent reporter knocked at the door, a legislator flew into a rage and slammed the door.
"You people get out, we don't want you here," screamed the MLA.
EARLIER REPORTSBJP takes tough stance against PDA MLAsPDA to stake claim in Manipur after May 28
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