Mayavati with Ajit Singh in New Delhi on Sunday. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha

New Delhi, July 20: The Left-UNPA combine’s attempt to throw a new prime ministerial candidate, Mayavati, into the ring has spread panic in the BJP.

Neither the party’s own Prime Minister-in-waiting, L.K. Advani, nor its ordinary workers have the stomach to digest this political upset.

While senior BJP leaders like Venkaiah Naidu, Arun Jaitley, Vijay Kumar Malhotra and others confronted the “propaganda” on Mayavati for Prime Minister, others were privately brooding if this was another manifestation of the flawed strategy of standing in queue with the Left.

The BJP leaders asserted that the only option before the country after the fall of the Manmohan Singh government was fresh elections. They categorically denied any possibility of a ragtag arrangement replacing the existing government.

The BJP leaders also emphasised that Mayavati did not have the NDA’s support to become Prime Minister. “Our candidate is Advani and there is no question of even thinking about anybody else,” Naidu said.

The party fears that any “inspired” message that the BJP could consider supporting Mayavati as Prime Minister can be devastating for its prospects and extremely demoralising for its workers. The statements by Prakash Karat and Chandrababu Naidu have already generated much unease among the party leaders.

A senior BJP leader said: “If this propaganda is linked with Advani’s praise of Mayavati at a recent Kanpur rally, we will suffer a lot. Now Advani should realise why we had protested so strongly against his soft posturing on Mayavati. One such mistake will ruin our chances at the next election as the upper castes across the country will resent this move.”

Another leader went to the extent of arguing that the best response from the BJP would be to back out from the topple game and prevent Mayavati from taking centrestage.

The BJP has been arguing that the BSP emerged the clear winner in the last Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh only because people saw it as the “possible alternative” and also the “frontrunner in the elections”.

Even Advani has said on several occasions that the BJP’s failure to project itself as the alternative to the Samajwadi Party government at that time proved costly. The BJP, many leaders feel, is on the verge of committing the same mistake.

Over the last two days, Karat has managed to present Mayavati as the prima ballerina of the political dance in the national capital. Apart from projecting her as the candidate for Prime Minister, the UNPA and the Left have created a situation in which Mayavati would run away with the credit of pulling down the government if the UPA loses the trust vote.

The BJP cannot stomach this possibility as Advani himself would have loved to emerge as the central figure.

BJP leaders admitted that Mayavati succeeded in upstaging Advani to become the focal point of the Opposition forces. The frustration in the NDA camp was evident when Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav refused to accept the consolidation of Opposition forces around Mayavati. “What is their strength? A few MPs getting together from here and there mean nothing. You can’t call it lambandi (fortification). The Left with its 60 MPs is a force, the others are not.”

The development has caused so much consternation in the BJP that some leaders are offering this argument to counter Mayavati’s new profile: “It’s meaningless till the government falls. Where has the government fallen? Once this government survives, we will be back as the engine of Opposition forces. Advaniji will be the focal point.”

Hidden in this argument is a hope that the government survives. Good news for Manmohan Singh?

NDA managers are grappling with declining numbers. Five members from the NDA have already crossed over to the other side and at least six more are suspect. At an NDA dinner hosted by Advani tonight, five MPs did not attend because of illness, five because they had crossed sides and one Akali member remained absent for unstated reason.

While the BJP member from Balrampur in Uttar Pradesh, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, joined the Samajwadi Party bandwagon, suspended Gujarat MP Somabhai Patel made his intentions of voting for the UPA clear to the Congress leaders.

From the JD(U), Ram Swaroop Prasad from Nalanda in Bihar and S.S. Koya from Lakshadweep have defected. Shiv Sena member Tukaram Rege, the MP from Parbani, also kept away from Advani’s dinner as he plans to go along with the Congress.

A question mark hangs over three other Sena MPs —Bhavna Gawli, Kalpana Narhire and Ananth Gudhe — who chose to attend tonight’s dinner. Sources said one more BJP MP from Gujarat and two MPs from Karnataka are on the suspect list.