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Kalyan's revolt sends ripples in UP BJP

Sharat Pradhan in Lucknow

Ousted Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh's belligerence and frontal attack on Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has sent shock waves in the state Bharatiya Janata Party circles.

"We knew Kalyan Singh was in a defiant mood, but we had never imagined that he would go to the extent of making wild accusations against the prime minister," observed a senior BJP leader who had once been close to the former chief minister.

"He has always been a well-meaning man until he got spoilt due to his coterie of advisors, foremost of them being controversial municipal corporator Kusum Rai. She was nominated as chairperson of the State Commission for Women on his last day in office," the leader lamented.

Kalyan's vitriolic attack against Vajpayee came as a shock even to Chief Minister Ram Prakash Gupta. "Why did Kalyan Singh enter into a direct confrontation with the most revered leader of our party?" Gupta asked.

The former chief minister's sworn political foe Kalraj Misra, who always nurtured designs to replace Kalyan for the coveted job, was, however, cautious. He dismissed the whole issue with the simple remark, "I do not wish to react on the basis of what has been published in newspapers. I do not believe a word of it."

Yet speculation has been rife over Kalyan's next move after he sounded the bugle of revolt against Vajpayee in his hometown Aligarh yesterday.

Without mincing words, he had held Vajpayee solely responsible for his ouster. "As long as Vajpayee is sitting on that chair, there is no question of my accepting any position either in the party organisation or in the central government."

When a journalist drew his attention to Vajpayee's statement that he had been offered a berth in the central Cabinet, Kalyan shot back, "How could a person who was found unsuitable for a job in Lucknow be considered suitable for another assignment in Delhi?"

Since it was amply evident from his observations that he had made up his mind to say goodbye to the BJP, political observers were drawing up their own assessment of the possible scenario that could emerge as a result of such a move on Kalyan's part.

What had surprised many in Lucknow was that Kalyan chose to rebel at a time when Vajpayee appeared to be in a conciliatory mood as visible from his observations yesterday.

Much was being read into the former chief minister's decision to attend the wedding reception of his arch political rival and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's son in New Delhi on Friday.

Even as Kalyan urged the media in Aligarh not to ''read anything political into this", observers felt the so-called "social call" was "politically very meaningful".

They wondered if Kalyan ever paid a "social visit" before to Mulayam. "The two have been at such loggerheads that they could never see eye to eye. So if now Kalyan chooses to pay a social call to Mulayam, it cannot be without a political purpose," quipped political analyst Professor S V Singh.

It is said that Kalyan's blue-eyed sadhu Swami Sakshi Maharaj, who took a plunge into Mulayam's lap after being thrown out of the BJP, could have built bridges between the two former UP chief ministers.

Sakshi Maharaj, who openly campaigned for the Samajwadi Party while spewing venom against Vajpayee, had also been claiming that he would bring Kalyan and Mulayam under a common banner.

"Perhaps the Swami had managed to convince Kalyan to break off and turn into another Shankar Singh Vaghela," remarked a BJP legislator.

But knowing Kalyan's egoist nature, it was unlikely that he would simply cross over to Mulayam's party and play second fiddle to the Samajwadi Party chief.

Kalyan would play his cards deftly and much would depend on the support of members of legislative assembly. The move would help only if he is in a position to spark a vertical split in the UP BJP to form a government with the support of Mulayam's 109 legislators. The BJP's strength in the 425-member UP assembly stands at 175. So it is no mean task that lies before Kalyan.

His second option could be to initially push his son Rajveer Singh into the Mulayam camp while exploring the possibility of a split in the BJP. His visit to Ayodhya barely 24 hours before his stepping down from office, when he flayed his own party for "ignoring the temple issue", is now seen as an obvious prelude to sparking a divide in the party rank and file in the name of Ayodhya.

However, his hardline approach on the Ayodhya issue would keep Mulayam away from him. Therefore, it would suit the belligerent former chief minister to play the backward card -- a move that Mulayam too seemed to be eagerly looking forward to.

But then what is holding Kalyan back? Is his vitriolic attack against Vajpayee aimed at paving the ground for his own ouster from the party? After all that would glorify him as a hero.

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