He is learnt to have made it clear to the BJP leaders that in view of the hard line adopted by them, the Akali Dal would not mind withdrawing support to the Vajpayee government to precipitate the issue.

He was particularly irked by what is being described by the Akali leaders as the ``unrelenting attitude'' of Union Home Minister L. K. Advani, who conveyed to the SGPC chief it might be difficult to exclude Udham Singh Nagar from Uttaranchal.Publicly, Tohra has been taking the stand that the final decision would have to be taken by Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal who is also the Akali Dal president.

Though no formal decision has so far been taken by the political affairs committee of theAkali Dal so far, the Tohra camp is likely to press Badal to take the first step by withdrawing two Akali ministers -- Surjit Singh Barnala and Sukhbir Singh -- from the Union Council of Ministers to put pressure on the BJP, while continuing the support to the government.

However, the BJP ministers in Punjab are of the view that the Akali Dal has unnecessarily taken a tough stand and now the party would have to find some ways to wriggle out. It is being said that Badal should have been assertive on the issues directly relating to Punjab. Thes argue that in case the Punjabi farmers are uprooted from Udham Singh Nagar, at least this is the apprehension, they would return to Punjab and there is no spare land in this agriculturally the most advanced state. The tough stand taken by the Akalis is attributed to this apprehension. The support to the demand for the exclusion of the district being raised by the people of Udham Singh Nagar has also been extended by CPI(M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet andformer Union minister Balwant Singh Ramoowalia. Now the Congress in Punjab has also assured full support to the state government on this issue.

On the BJP stand that the Lok Sabha constituency could not be bifurcated by taking out Udham Singh Nagar segment, senior Akali ministers advance the logic that parliamentary constituency has never been the unit while reorganising the states earlier. They refer to the Union Territory status accorded to Chandigarh in this context during the reorganisation of Punjab in 1966.

The Akali leaders make a distinction between Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Advani on the Udham Singh Nagar issue.