Congress awaits further fissures in the UF

The Congress leadership is watching with bated breath whether resentful United Front constituents, including the CPI-M and the Janata Dal, will carry out their threat to unseat Prime Minister I K Gujral and go in for a snap poll.

According to senior Congress leaders, the party leadership is keenly scrutinising the moves of UF leaders like the outspoken Harkishen Singh Surjeet of the CPI-M and JD politicians like Sharad Yadav, Ram Vilas Paswan and H D Deve Gowda. The Congress leadership is only too aware of these UF leaders's disenchantment with the prime minister for his soft line on the Laloo Prasad Yadav issue.

The JD leaders will reportedly attack Gujral during the Dal executive committee meeting scheduled for Sunday, August 3. A resolution critical of the prime minister for 'shielding' corrupt politicians will be moved at the meeting.

Congress Joint Secretary Major Ved Prakash told Rediff On The NeT that his party leadership is aware about the tensions within the UF and the resentment against Gujral. However, Prakash said, the Congress will wait and see whether the disenchanted UF leaders will attack Gujral and work to unseat him or whether they will back down as they have done several times in the recent past.

Meanwhile, West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee chief Soumen Mitra has told party president Sitaram Kesri that Congress gadfly Mamta Banerjee's threat of scuttling the three-day AICC convention in Calcutta is to be ignored. However, Kesri and other senior Congress leaders are not so sure if they can ignore Banerjee's threat. Congress vice-president Jitendra Prasada is among the senior Congress leaders involved in a mission to persuade Banerjee to back down from her plans to hold a parallel Congress convention.