A respite for Gupta

By Our Special Correspondent

LUCKNOW, JUNE. 13. The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Mr. Ram Prakash Gupta, is ill-at- ease despite the Bharatiya Janata Party high command's decision to allow him to continue in office for the time being. If the idea to bring in a new incumbent as the State's Chief Minister was deferred, it was because of the lack of consensus as to who should replace Mr. Gupta. Perception persists that with his continuation in office the BJP would find it difficult to regain its lost popularity.

When Mr. Gupta was summoned to New Delhi last week-end along with other senior BJP leaders from the State, speculations were rife that the Union Minister, Mr. Rajnath Singh, had already been selected as his successor. The undue publicity to his case, with or without his consent, however, alerted his rivals and they are stated to have made extra efforts to spoil his case. As the confabulations in New Delhi ended it was made clear that Mr. Gupta would continue to hold on.

The Rajnath Singh lobby in the BJP appeared to be over confident about his case. It was pleaded that his rivals - Mr. Kalraj Mishra, Mr. Lalji Tandon and Mr. Om Prakash Singh - did not have a stature equal to that of the Union Minister for Water and Surface Transport, an argument hotly rejected by others. The rivals interpreted the ``impatience'' shown by Mr. Singh as his immaturity and joined hands if only to keep him at bay. As the day came to an end they even promised to extend their collective support to Mr. Gupta to run the Government efficiently in the larger interest of the organisation.

Their common objective to damage Mr. Rajnath Singh having been accomplished the situation in the party has been reverted to its initial stage. The decision that the Government should be run in consultations with the top leaders by the Chief Minister is difficult to implement. Personal differences and problems relating to individual aspirations can hardly be sorted out like this, party insiders feel.

To prove his worth Mr. Gupta has to accomplish difficult tasks. The very first task to indicate the BJP's political superiorty in the State's Panchayat elections later this month itself is hard to perform. Conflicting interests of leaders and their differences can not be reconciled at one meeting and that would continue to send contradictory signals to the bureaucracy.

The leadership question is thus likely to crop up again and sooner.

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