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BJP in election mode, sets up panel

	January 14, 2008

With just about 15 months left for the Lok Sabha elections and Assembly elections in nearly 10 states due this year, the BJP has got into the election mode.



Party president Rajnath Singh announced the formation of a 19-member central election management committee on Tuesday, Jan. 8.



Confounding political observers, Rajnath Singh designated himself as chairman of the committee while leaving out Narendra Modi who was behind the party’s remarkable success in the recent assembly elections in Gujarat. The committee has been given the task of finalising the party’s strategy for wresting power at the Centre in next year’s general elections.





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BJP’s Action Plan



* The Committee has been tasked with the responsibility of finalising the party’s strategy for wresting power at the Centre in next year’s general elections.



* The party has also embarked on a mission to expand the alliance. For this purpose, a series of meetings with all state units have been planned to discuss the political scenario pre¬vailing in each state, while exploring the possibility of roping in new alliance partners.



* In an attempt to reactivate its organisational machinery in each state and lift the morale of its cadre, the BJP has decided to hold rallies in all capitals.



* The action plan was prepared by five-member committee, comprising Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, Arun Shourie and Vinay Sahastrabudhe.



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The first meeting of the huge central election management committee - which includes former BJP presidents, all general secretaries, party leaders and their deputies in the two Houses of Parliament, a few vice-presidents and secretaries - will be held on January 15.



As part of the action-plan devised by its senior leaders, the party simultaneously set in motion the project to re-invigor¬ate NDA by strengthening bonds and enlisting support of new alliance partners in states where the BJP’s organisational set-up is weak or inadequate to enable it to win on its own.



With this aim in mind, it was decided to convene a meeting of NDA between January 22 and 25. It will be attended by chief ministers of all NDA-ruled states, presidents of parties compris¬ing the alliance, leaders in the two Houses of Parliament and other important players. BJP deputy leader Sushma Swaraj has been entrusted with the task of co-ordinating with alliance partners.



The party has also embarked on a mission to expand the alliance. For this purpose, a series of meetings with all state units have been planned to discuss the political scenario pre¬vailing in each state, while exploring the possibility of roping in new alliance partners.





BJP rolls out raths



The BJP which is already in election mode, has started two rath yatras. While the first one is the ‘Kisan Yatra’ led by Rajnath Singh in Vidarbha region, the other yatra, led by Yashwant Sinha is against ‘Kushasan’ (bad governance) under the Madhu Koda Government in Jharkhand.



Sources said that the Jharkhand Yatra has been launched with the intention of fishing in troubled waters, after the Congress gave indications of withdrawing support to the Koda Government.



Rajnath Singh’s Kisan Yatra, in which he is accompanied by national general secretary Gopinath Munde, started from Wardha district of Maharashtra on Thursday, Jan. 10. BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy said that Rajnath Singh had highlighted three things in his speech there: farmers’ problems will not end without giving them a good minimum support price; they should be ensured social security and pension, and farm income insurance guarantee scheme should be implemented for the benefit of farmers.





BJP demands Bharat Ratna for Vajpayee



In a controversial move, senior BJP leader L.K. Advani has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recommending former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s name for Bharat Ratna this year. The letter written on Jan. 5 requests that Vajpayee should be conferred the highest civilian award of the country on Jan. 26, Republic Day.



Observers say that Advani’s letter virtually reads like a political obituary as if Vajpayee has already faded away from public life.



“Sadly, there have been instances when the award was not given even when such illustrious Indians existed in our midst or when their names were suggested for posthumous recognition. In this context, I would like to propose the name of Atal Behari Vajpayee for recognition with Bharat Ratna this year,” Advani told the PM in his letter.



BJP leaders on Wednesday tried projecting Advani’s efforts as a “thanksgiving gesture” towards Vajpayee for proposing his name as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.



However, it took a lot of convincing by both RSS leader Mohanrao Bhagwat and BJP president Rajnath Singh before Vajpayee agreed to let Advani lead the party in the next general elec¬tions.



Observers say Advani seems eager to ensure that Vajpayee continues to sleep quietly. The eagerness was stark in Advani’s 10-point recommendation that reads like a textbook essay on a politician of yesteryears:



* “An outstanding parliamentarian, Shri Vajpayee has the distinction of the longest parliamentary life among all living MPs.



* He has been the PM thrice - for the longest period after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi. He is the first PM to have led a stable and successful coalition.



* He strengthened India’s democracy both when he was in or out of power for a long period.



* Although a leader from the Opposition, he never hesitated to support the government when national interest was at stake.



* It was under his premiership that India became a nuclear power.



* It was under him that India made sincere efforts to norma¬lise relations with Pakistan/ Shri Vajpayee not only strengthened the national security but also accelerated India’s socio-economic development.



* It was under his premiership that the Indian diaspora and its emotional links with Mother India received government atten¬tion for the first time.”





BJP itself should honour Vajpayee : Dasmunsi



Commenting on Advani’s letter, Parliamentary Affairs Min¬ister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi said that the leader of the Opposition would have done better to honour Vajpayee within the BJP rather than by writing letters of recommendation to the Government. He said, “it is not the tradition to communicate through letters on such matters. Such matters are not decided through letters.”



Observers say that even within the BJP ranks, there is controversy over the letter with some people contending that it was Advani’s way of consigning Vajpayee to history.



“Even if Advani had written a letter, there was no need to circulate it to the media,” said a party source.



For Vajpayee, this embarrassment could easily have been avoided.



No one in the BJP was willing to comment on what led Advani to arbitrarily dash off this letter of recommendation. Party spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy preferred to walk out of an infor¬mal briefing at the BJP headquarters rather than answer questions on this issue.



Senior leader Arun Jaitley did not wish to be dragged into the matter of why Advani wrote the letter.



Former BJP spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said: “I will only comment on issues like delimitation and reorganisation of states. Please do not ask me to comment on Advani’s letter.”





Bharat Ratna okay for Jyoti Basu : CPI(M)



While the CPI(M) is generally against celebration of birth¬days, observance of religious rituals and acceptance of awards by its party members, the party now says that it would not mind if veteran leader Jyoti Basu was conferred the Bharat Ratna award. CPI(M) West Bengal secretary and politburo member Biman Bose said in Kolkata on Jan 11 : “I do not know the criteria, but if he fulfils the criteria and if he is nominated, we do not have any objection.” He was responding to queries from journalists on media reports linking Basu to the award.



About three years ago, the CPI(M) had blocked Basu’s chanc¬es of getting any award from a university of another state. “If any leader wishes to accept even the Bharat Ratna, he has to take the party’s approval,” the CPI(M) had said then in an official statement.



But a senior CPI(M) leader said on Jan. 11: “Jyoti Basu has reached such a high status that it will be bad for the party if we do not make an exception for him when it comes to Bharat Ratna.”