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President summons Congress, United Front leaders on Monday

President K R Narayanan has called both the Congress and United Front leaders tomorrow to assess their views on the formation of a new government.

Front leaders have an appointment at Rashtrapati Bhavan at 1900 hours while Congress leader Sitaram Kesri will meet the President an hour-and-a-half later, at 2030 hours.

Front sources said the UF leaders will hold informal discussions before meeting Narayanan. Front convener and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu will arrive in the capital for tomorrow's meeting.

Front spokesperson S Jaipal Reddy said there was no change in the ''well considered position that the UF took on the very first day,'' rejecting the Congress demand for removal of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam ministers from the Gujral government.

President Narayanan also met Chief Election Commissioner Dr Manohar Singh Gill on Saturday evening. The meeting lasted half-an-hour.

The President summoned Dr Gill, who was in Agra on an official assignment, to hear his views on the political developments.

The Election Commission says it is getting ready for an election. The Commission will publish the revised electoral rolls on January 5, 1998 as per schedule. Under the rules, the Commission can notify an election as early as January 6, 1998. It will take another 26 days to conduct the poll, an Commission official told Rediff On The NeT.

However, the electoral exercise involves requistioning of ballot papers, counting centres, indelible ink and various other administrative and security arrangements. Therefore, the minimum time needed for holding a general election would be at least two months from now.

Meanwhile, first-time members of Parliament will march to Rashtrapati Bhavan tomorrow to urge President Narayanan not to dissolve the eleventh Lok Sabha.

First time MPs forum member Professor Prem Singh Chandumajra said the MPs would meet at 1100 hours and chalk out a strategy to involve a majority of 284 first-termers in the Lok Sabha.

The first-termers have appealed to like-minded MPs to join their campaign, which they said, is directed towards finding an alternative to the dissolution of the Lok Sabha.

Maintaining that the move was sponsored by the Bharatiya Janata Party, none of the MPs from the Asom Gana Parishad, Left parties and Tamil Maanila Congress had associated with the first-termer's campaign. The number of Congress MPs, who attended the first-termers's first meeting last Monday, fell drastically after the party leadership threatened them with disciplinary action.

UF spokesman Jaipal Reddy said the Front had opted to stand by the DMK, not because of ''political fidelity,'' but because it placed the national interest above everything else.

''We were not willing to be privy to the process of alienation of a major ethnic community -- the Tamils -- or estrangement of a major political party on the pretext of unsubstantiated indictment by the Jain Commission report,'' he said.

UF sources said the Gujral government did not recommend dissolution of the Lok Sabha on the principled premise that once the Congress withdrew its support, the Front's government was reduced to a minority and the ball was in the President's court.

They dismissed the prospects of a UF-led coalition government with the Congress minus the Left parties. ''Had there been any chance for such a formation, the Gujral government would not have gone,'' Front leaders said, predicting a mid-term poll by the end of March.

George Iype, UNI

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