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India's ruling party makes peace with dissidents

NEW DELHI: India's ruling Congress (I) party, fearing a possible drubbing in general elections, said Saturday that it was ready to make peace with its more prominent dissidents.

Congress spokesman Vithal Gadgil said the party was appealing to at least five former ministers who have entered the election fray against party nominees to withdraw.

"Some of them will withdraw," the Rao confidant said here.

On Friday, Gadgil announced that the Congress had not expelled the former cabinet ministers as stated earlier, and urged them not to run against Congress candidates to parliament.

Two Indian ministers, including one who was a strong advocate of Rao's economic liberalisation, quit the government Wednesday and threw in their lot with a newly-formed regional party in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

The defections stunned Rao, who had desperately pleaded with one of them, minister of state for commerce Palaniappan Chidambaram, not to go. Chidambaram, who is highly respected, was a passionate backer of the economic reforms.

Later, Madhavrao Scindia, a former cabinet minister who had resigned in January, also entered the electoral contest after forming a new party, shocking the ruling party.

Scindia is one of the most influential politicians in Madhya Pradesh, the country's largest state where the Congress is bound to lose heavily in the race for the region's 40 parliament seats because of his volte-face.

The other two ex-ministers running against Congress candidates are M. Arunachalam, a friend of Chidambaram, and Kamal Nath, a Scindia camp follower.

Gadgil said the announcement two days ago expelling the four as well as H.K.L. Bhagat, another former cabinet minister, from the Congress on charges of dissidence "was not done in keeping with the (party) constitution."

"Because of that (earlier) statement some of them (rebels) became hesitant to withdraw (from the contest)," Gadgil said. "Now they might ... In fact, some of them will withdraw."

Opinion polls have warned that the Congress is heading for a defeat in the staggered elections involving some 600 million voters, and that the polls would lead to a hung parliament.

Congress officials say Rao, who is also president of the party, is desperate to woo back the dissidents, in particular Chidambaram and Scindia.-AFP