Defence Minister George Fernandes, BJP's Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and at least two functionaries of the RSS who are in the BJP, established contact with Chandra Shekhar to salvage the situation for them.

It is not immediately known whether they had the authorisation of the RSS and the BJP to initiate a dialogue with Chandra Shekhar who had voted against the Vajpayee government and also criticised the RSS in the House.

This section however feels that Chandra Shekhar alone can stem the rot setting in the outed coalition. One after the other, the allies are deserting the BJP and some are in the process of splitting. Chandra Shekhar has the skills to prevent this and also a capability to mustersupport from among other parties which are with the Congress.

Sensing this, leaders of the Congress Party also swung into action after learning that the BJP is wooing the former Prime Minister. R K Dhawan, AICC general secretary, met Chandra Shekhar and is reported to have sounded him on supporting the Congress. Dhawan also indicated to Shekhar that Sonia Gandhi would like to meet him at his convenience. Since every vote is important in the present Lok Sabha, the Congress does not want to take a chance.

However, it is learnt that Shekhar did not show any keen interest in meeting Sonia. Indicating his displeasure with the Congress, he criticised the party today for setting a dangerous precedent by leaving everything to an ``individual''.

Without naming Sonia Gandhi, he wondered how could democracy be saved if the second biggest party authorised an individual to take all its decisions. He also declared that he would not support a Congress-led government unless it came out with an acceptableprogramme.

Chandra Shekhar made these observations at a hurriedly convened press conference this morning clearly distancing himself from the Congress and its allies.

Chandra Shekhar said a situation was being deliberately created in the country to project an individual and "this is not good for the country and I felt it is incorrect to keep quiet on the matter". He also said some outside forces were trying to influence the events in the country but declined to name them.

Commenting on the President directing the government to seek a confidence vote, he said that Narayanan's decision was "unjustified".

Chandra shekhar said the President need not have directed the Vajpayee government to seek a trust vote in the midst of Budget session when the government could have been defeated on any money bill.

When asked if he was so concerned about the instability in the country why he voted against the BJP, he said since Vajpayee government had done nothing good during the past one year, he was left with nooption but to oppose the motion.

In reply to a question, he said it was a good idea to have a national government in this kind of situation but it did not appear to be feasible.