NEW DELHI, June 2: With the two Janata Dal leaders Laloo Prasad Yadav and Sharad Yadav refusing to budge from their respective stands on the last day of withdrawal of nominations, a showdown between the party's two presidential aspirants now seems inevitable.

However, last-ditch efforts continued to be made to avert a split within the party. There were reports that pressure was being exerted on working president Sharad Yadav to withdraw from the fray in order to prevent a confrontation, but he is learnt to have spurned the offer.

In an attempt to defuse the crisis, Planning Commission Chairman Madhu Dandavate tonight hosted a dinner which was attended by Laloo and Sharad Yadav, former prime minister H D Deve Gowda and Union Civil Aviation Minister C M Ibrahim.

At the same time, 27 MPs close to the Bihar Chief Minister were scheduled to meet Prime Minister I K Gujral late this night with a plea to intervene in the ongoing crisis. Barring Anchal Das (Lok Sabha member from Orissa) and Som Pal (Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh), all of them hail from Bihar.

Interestingly, these MPs, belonging both to the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, are also signatories to a memorandum welcoming Laloo's decision to hold the party elections at Patna in Bihar and expressing solidarity with him in what they called his fight to uphold social justice and secularism.Five Lok Sabha members from Bihar have kept themselves out of the signature campaign. These include, besides Sharad, Union Railways Minister Ram Vilas Paswan, former Union Minister Devendra Prasad Yadav, party's youth wing chief Nawal Kishore Rai and Dinesh Chandra Yadav.

For his part, Laloo put up a brave face. ``Unke pass na punji hai, na paati. Bada party banane chale hain,'' he said. (How can they build the party when they neither have the capital nor the manpower?)

For the first time, Laloo publicly criticized Sharad: ``Sharadji baura gain hain'' (Sharadji has become abnormal), he said, adding, ``He has deviated from the right path.''

Claiming that returning officer P K Samantray was being used by ``shrewd, manipulative persons,'' Laloo alleged: ``His role has become suspect, and he cannot ensure free and fair presidential elections.'' Laloo said he would, in a day or two, file a reply to the show-cause notice issued by the Delhi High Court restraining him from interfering in the presidential polls.

The returning officer, in the meanwhile, was in the process of dispatching to the electoral college members the date, time and venue for the presidential elections. Laloo's supporters have also begun making preparations to hold presidential elections in Patna.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.