NEW DELHI, Nov 17: Pushed to the wall by an increasingly belligerent Congress, the United Front (UF) today skirted the sensitive issue of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) continuing in the coalition.

In marked contrast to its categorical stand so far that it would not buckle under Congress pressure to dump the DMK for its alleged role in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, members of the coalition's core group remained silent on the fate of their beleaguered partner.

The unease in the DMK camp was clear from the fact that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and DMK chief M Karunanidhi cancelled his engagements back home this evening and decided to stay back in the Capital for more confabulations with UF leaders.

To make matters worse for the party, its alliance partner Tamil Maanila Congress's (TMC) supremo GK Moopanar was busy meeting Congress leaders Sitaram Kesri and Pranab Mukherjee to decide his party's strategy in the aftermath of the tabling of the controversial Jain Commission report.

At the 75-minute meeting of the UF core committee, Karunanidhi circulated some papers which sought to prove the Congress' complicity in the events leading to Rajiv's assassination.

Prime Minister IK Gujral and Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) general secretary Harkishen Singh Surjeet briefed the meeting about their talks with Congress leaders, including Sitaram Kesri.

UF leaders were uncharacteristically reluctant to dwell on the DMK's future. The usual effusive remarks of ``We are firmly behind the party'' and ``the UF remains united'' were surely missing. Even the Front's convenor N Chandrababu Naidu was remarkably reticent. He refused to respond to any queries posed by the media on this count.

``There is no reluctance (to reiterate support to the DMK). But I don't want to comment any more,'' Naidu said, before flying back to Hyderabad tonight.

A senior leader explained later that the UF had decided not to do anything that would provoke the Congress into taking a drastic step. ``There is a conscious attempt at de-escalation of tension and our approach is to lower the temperature,'' he quipped.

Senior UF leaders attributed the cautious response to the Congress' moves to the fact that ``there is no formal demand as yet from the Congress for the DMK's ouster''.

All that UF spokesman S Jaipal Reddy was willing to say was that the standing committee had called upon the Centre to place the Jain Commission report along with all relevant documents and the Action Taken Report on the very first day in Parliament. He claimed that the meeting did not discuss the Congress' demand for the DMK's ouster.

When pressed further, he said that there was ``no threat of any kind to the UF Government''.

In an obvious attempt to divert the attention of Parliament from the Jain Commission report, the core group decided to ask its members to press for a discussion on the recent events in Uttar Pradesh where the BJP had formed its Government in a ``brazen manner'' and had now let loose a reign of terror against Samajwadi Party activists.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.