LK Advani with Jaswant Singh at the news conference on Saturday. Picture by Rajesh Kumar

New Delhi, July 5: Shadow Prime Minister L.K. Advani today asked the Congress-led Centre not to wait for Parliament’s monsoon session to prove it hadn’t lost majority as last week’s events had reduced governance to a “theatre of the absurd”.

“It must immediately call a Parliament session to seek a vote of confidence,” the BJP leader told a news conference, arguing there was no need for the Opposition to move a no-trust motion.

Observers said BJP leaders were aware that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had proposed moving a trust motion as soon as Parliament reconvened next month and that the Congress had agreed.

Now, by pressing for an immediate confidence vote — which is unlikely — the BJP, they added, was trying to send out the message that the government had lost its legitimacy.

“The government has been reduced to a charade.... It has lost moral legitimacy (to govern).... For survival, the government seems ready to trade off anything,” the former BJP boss told the crowded news meet.

Advani said the Congress-led central coalition was interested only in survival at a time when governance had been paralysed, the economy was in a mess and militants were striking at will.

The BJP’s candidate for Prime Minister said the Congress had once opted for “head surgery (by replacing H.D. Deve Gowda with I.K. Gujral) to save a government”. Now, it had opted for “leg surgery”.

The allusion was to the imminent divorce with the Left and the new-found bonhomie with the Samajwadi Party.

Advani highlighted the contrast between the attitudes of two Congress governments. While the Centre had gone to such lengths to save the nuclear deal, Kashmir chief minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, he said, had revoked the Amarnath land transfer to save his government, angering Hindus.

The comment, observers said, was a subtle attempt to suggest that the Congress-led coalition at the Centre didn’t care for Hindu sentiments.

Advani expressed outrage at the manner in which two bitter enemies (the Congress and the Samajwadi Party) had bargained to become friends but refused to comment on other UNPA — or third front — allies, whom the BJP is desperately wooing.

Asked if the BJP would open a channel of communication with Mayavati, Advani said the Uttar Pradesh chief minister had decided to field candidates all over the country while his party had decided to contest all the seats in the heartland. “So there is no question of an alliance with the BSP,” he added.

Former Union minister Jaswant Singh said he had offered to support a UNPA candidate for Prime Minister during the last presidential poll.

The BJP had formally denied such reports when the controversy broke, but Jaswant said today: “I went to Maurya Sheraton Hotel and met Jayalalithaa and told her that the NDA will support any UNPA candidate for the Prime Minister’s post in lieu of support for (Bhairon Singh) Shekhawat.”

The media had reported the BJP had worked out a plan to topple the government in case Shekhawat defeated the UPA candidate, Pratibha Patil.

But the plot failed to materialise as the UNPA refused to back Shekhawat though the BJP promised to accept a third front candidate, possibly Samajwadi boss Mulayam Singh Yadav, as Prime Minister.