April 14, 2002	Sunday	Muharram 30, 1423

NEW DELHI, April 13: Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was weighing his chances on Saturday against the opposition leader and Congress Party President Sonia Gandhi, after he accused her of seeking to force mid-term polls, while Sonia, though denying that such an initiative was being prompted by her party, said she was prepared for the test anyway.

“It seems Vajpayee has lost his mental balance and, hence, is making charges that the Congress is trying to bring down his government and force a general election,” she told reporters in Guwahati in a widely-telecast news conferences.

“But we are fully prepared for any eventuality. Our party is ready to talk to secular parties, including those presently supporting the BJP, when the time is ripe,” she said and named the Trinamool Congress, an NDA ally, as one of the parties she was prepared to talk to in this regard.

Congress Party chief said the impression she got throughout the country was that people were quite fed up with the coalition government which had been a complete failure. They were now looking back to the good old days of the Congress, she claimed.

“It is for them (government) to decide when to have elections, but as far as the Congress is concerned we are ready,” Ms Gandhi said.

She accused Vajpayee and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of exposing their ‘communal face’ by refusing to sack Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who has been charged with letting the violence in his state spiral into a pogrom.

“The BJP is a communal party and the mask of the prime minister for trying to project a secular image is totally exposed and gone,” Ms Gandhi said.

She was in Guwahati to attend a two-day conclave of 14 chief ministers of the Congress-ruled states. The meeting concluded on Saturday.

“The contradictions within the BJP and among the coalition partners have widened to such an extent that very soon the government would fall under its own weight,” Ms Gandhi said.

In reply to her comments, Star News, reporting from Hyderabad, said late on Saturday that Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, a crucial ally of Vajpayee’s ruling NDA coalition, had also demanded Modi’s prompt dismissal on Saturday.

It said Naidu had also warned against early polls in the communally polarized Gujarat state.

The BJP, in an apparently thought-out move, on Friday authorized Modi to dissolve the state assembly and seek a fresh mandate.

Ms Gandhi said her party was ‘ready’ to face the people and was hopeful of ‘winning’ the polls, even in the communally charged Gujarat, where over 2,000 people, mostly Muslims are feared killed by right-wing Hindu mobs during the last six weeks.

Congress president said the biggest challenge before the country today was from the ‘communal forces’ spearheaded by the BJP, posing a threat to secularism.

“The Congress is the only party that could provide and ensured protection and security to people of all faiths,” she claimed.

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