New Delhi, March 21
The secular allies of the Atal Behari Vajpayee government believe that the BJP leadership must give up its Hindutva agenda to stall serious cracks developing in the 24-party NDA.

Their stand is hardening and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee is in the vanguard of impressing upon the allies that they cannot allow the BJP to hijack the National Agenda for Governance (NAG) formulated by the disparate conglomerate.

This is a harbinger of trouble for the Vajpayee government even as the assertions of the BJP leadership that it is not deviating from the NAG has proved to be unconvincing to several NDA allies.

More than half a dozen of the NDA partners and ministerialists are meeting here tomorrow with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu’s Telegu Desam Party probably offering its good offices. They are concerned and agitated that communal tension has continued unabated since the Godhra carnage under the Narendra Modi Government in Gandhinagar.

This assumes significance because these parties, barring the Shiv Sena, are worried that the hawks in the BJP are carrying the day in whipping up communal tension as evidenced in Godhra and other parts of Gujarat coupled with the Orissa Assembly being targeted in Bhubaneswar.

It is the considered view of these parties that persisting communal tension are not isolated incidents but allegedly pre-meditated acts which cannot be brushed under the carpet.

Sources in the Trinamool Congress said this evening that most of the NDA partners had no doubt that the BJP must change tack and stopped from bringing to the forefront its pursuit of Hindutva. “If this is not done, it is only a matter of time before the BJP brings to the fore the other two issues of having a uniform civil code and abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution according special status to Jammu and Kashmir.”

The restlessness in the Trinamool Congress, Samata Party, Janata Dal (United), Indian National Lok Dal, Lok Janshakti as well as the TDP, which is supporting the Vajpayee government from outside are all too evident. A member of the Samata Party went to the extent of saying that if Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee does not take corrective action expeditiously, they might be compelled to quit the NDA. The others are not talking in such drastic terms.

Invitations for tomorrow’s conclave of NDA allies has been virtually sent to all the constituents, including Union Ministers Ram Vilas Paswan, Sharad Yadav, Ajit Singh and Nitish Kumar.