CHANDIGARH, Nov 23: The Bharatiya Janata Party today said mid-term election appeared to be the only solution to the country's political crisis and asserted his party would not indulge in politics of manipulation to come to power at the Centre.

Addressing a meet-the-press programme here, BJP president L K Advani said his party would prefer a mid-term poll as it expected a clear mandate in its favour. The next election, he felt, would not throw up a fractured verdict.

He said mid-term election appeared to be the only solution to the present crisis which he alleged arose due to `blackmail' of the Gujral government by the Congress.

Referring to his party's earlier stand on keeping all options, including forming an alternative government, in the event of fall of Gujral Ministry, Advani said BJP had talked about it at the instance of some Congress MPs who, he claimed, had expressed their willingness to form a separate group at the Centre.The BJP, however, would not like to go for this type of arrangement as the party would like to form the government with ``direct mandate'' of the people.

Advani said that the party would like to have discussion in Parliament on the Jain Commission, the Thakkar Commission and the Bofors issue ``before the present House gets dissolved''.

The Congress leaders have reduced the Rajiv Gandhi assasination issue to a cheap gimmick for pulling down the Uinted Front Government and putting themselves in power, the BJP chief added.

Advani said the exit of the Gujral government was in the offing but those responsible for the present situation were simultaneously trying to ``exhume the remains of the Congress and breathe life into it, hoping to hammer together a Congress-led coalition government in its place''. He added.

Lending support to the ``grave-diggers'' efforts were the Marxists, who like the Congress, had put up a show of support to the UF Government from outside, but had in fact like the Congress were ``engaged in some crude exercise of power without accountability'', he said.

Advani said that the very idea of forming a coalition government at the Centre 17 months ago was the joint conspiracy of the Congress and the Marxist to keep the BJP out of power.

The result was the weakest, most unrepresentative and the most incompetent government at the Centre in the 50 years history of India, he said ``When the United Front usurped power in may 1996 it was a tragedy. When it gave in to the Congress blackmail seven months ago and replaced H D Deve Gowda with Gujral, it was a farce abut now if congress succeeded in blackmailing the UF, the repetition becomes positively macabre'', Advani said.

The BJP chief said that the Common Minimum Programme (CMP) was also limited to keeping the BJP out of power at the Centre. Mr Advani said that the cpm's ''sordid behaviour'' had once again confirmed BJP's consistent characterisation of the Communists as a party of betrayers right from the freedom movement, during the Chinese aggression and the Emergency and now of their Front partners.

He said that the coalition government in the present form cannot be expected to work ``when the remote control was with somebody else''. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh on Sunday said BJP did not favour mid-term parliamentary elections and was trying to repeat the UP-type experiment at the Centre. ``We will explore all possibilities of forming our government and are hopeful with the help of our allies and new friends in some regional and national parties,'' he told PTI in Lucknow.

In reply to a question, Singh said BJP did not favour another mid-term election and would, therefore, explore all possibilities of forming its government. ``But if mid term polls were imposed on us, we are ready for it,'' he hastened to add.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.