GUWAHATI/NEW DELHI, 24 May — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s BJP party was accused yesterday of conspiring to topple the state government of Manipur.

“We suspect the BJP leaders in New Delhi coming to some sort of an understanding with the party legislators in Manipur before the confidence motion was taken up,” Manipur Chief Minister Radhabinod Koijam said in the state capital Imphal.

Koijam’s three-month-old Samata Party-led People’s Front government in the northeastern state lost a confidence motion on Monday after local BJP legislators voted against it.

The national BJP leadership initially washed its hands of the controversy, saying its local legislators defied orders from the party president.

Koijam was having none of it. “The destiny of India is in danger if the BJP which is ruling the nation can afford to be a party to such a conspiracy to bring down a government in such a whimsical manner,” he said. The move was seen as an “act of betrayal” by the Samata Party, which is an ally of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)-led coalition at the center, led by Atal Behari Vajpayee. Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is the dominant force of the NDA.

After a meeting with Vajpayee on Tuesday, Samata Party leader George Fernandes deferred a decision on whether to pull out of the NDA until Monday when Samata and BJP leaders meet in New Delhi to take stock of the situation.

But the crisis in the NDA over BJP-Samata stand-off on Manipur is still continuing. The meeting between Vajpayee and Fernandes failed to show any rapprochement effort, and only decided to hold a “joint meeting” of state leaders in Delhi on May 28. Though both the parties are avoiding a permanent break-up, a final picture would only emerge after the May 28 meeting.

However, despite the uneasy truce between the two parties, defiant BJP legislators in Manipur continued to chalk out plans to form a government with their leader, Dorendra Singh, as the chief minister.

On Tuesday, Singh was elected leader of a new political front — the Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA) — having the support of 40 legislators.