BOMBAY, 9 June — A ruling partner in Maharashtra yesterday flew its legislators from Indore to Bangalore to keep a step ahead of rival politicians trying to lure them away.
Legislators of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) went from Indore in Madhya Pradesh to Karnataka state capital Bangalore, nearly 1,000 km from here.
The Congress party, which heads Maharashtra’s ruling coalition, rules both Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.
According to NCP leaders here, the 53 legislators will be kept together with their colleagues from the Congress to prevent further defections ahead of the trust vote — scheduled Thursday — that will determine the government’s fate. Reports here say the legislators of the ruling front are being kept in a resort hotel owned by former Hindi film star Sanjay Khan near Bangalore. “They may be shifted to other locations if required,” an NCP leader said. A day after NCP’s legislators were sent to Indore, the opposition Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had reportedly managed to make contact with several of them.
Fearing a further exodus from its ranks, the NCP ferried its legislators to the quiet hideout in southern India. Their telephone calls would henceforth be monitored so they do not fall prey to opposition allurement, sources said.
The BJP has kept its legislators together in a Bombay hotel since Friday. And legislators of its ally Shiv Sena have been confined to a posh city club. A few hundred party workers are guarding them as well as the defectors from the NCP and the Congress. The defectors have brought the opposition combine within striking distance of power. The BJP’s leader in the assembly, former Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde, claimed the opposition front had the support of 151 legislators in the 288-member house.
Apart from 69 Shiv Sena and 55 BJP legislators, the alliance claims the backing of 12 independents, eight members of a smaller combine and seven rebels from the NCP and the Congress.
But the left parties have contested Munde’s claim, clarifying they would not ally with a combine that is sympathetic to the Hindu right-wing.Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh denied there was a threat to his government yet.
