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BJP national executive meet : Holds UPA responsible for terrorism

	September 11, 2006

The BJP has blamed Pakistan and the Manmohan Singh Government for the continuance chain of terror attacks in the country. A resolution on Internal security adopted on the last day of the party national executive meeting in Dehradun on Saturday, Sept. 9, charged the Government with playing vote-bank politics while dealing with terrorism. The resolution said that at the same time Pakistan has successfully begun using what it called “its Indian assets” to spread terror in the country.



The BJP promised to make this issue an election plank and take it up through a nationwide programme. It warned that new links would continue to be created in the terror chain unless the UPA Government delinked vote-bank politics with plans to cope with the problem.



“I hold the entire Government responsible for what happened in Malegaon,” former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said as he emerged from the venue of the session. The Government was taking inadequate steps to handle the situation.



Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi blamed the Centre “for waiting for the next terror attack” instead of strengthening its intelligence gathering.



The party resolution pointed out that until a few years ago, terror attacks had only cross-border involvement. “Of late, the participation of home-grown terrorists to aid and assist cross-border terrorism has been on the increase. This rise in indigenous terrorism is a direct result of the appeasement policy and the huge illegal Bangladeshi population in the country.”





Three-year tenure for Rajnath



Rajnath Singh will remain president of the Bharatiya Janata Party for another three years.



The process of organizational elections, already begun, is expected to be completed by November, well ahead of Assembly polls in four States early next year. Singh is completing the tenure of L.K. Advani, from whom he took over as president in January this year. Now, he will have the full three-year tenure.



In his concluding remarks at the three-day national executive meeting, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee complimented the party president on raising people-oriented issues such as the agrarian crisis, suicides by farmers, price rise and internal security during the session. He said the party should go forward under Singh’s leadership.



Vajpayee’s words were taken as a signal for an assured three-year term for Singh. Other senior leaders also confirmed that there was no doubt that he would continue as president.



During the meeting, Singh laid stress on internal democracy, adding if consensus was not arrived at for elected posts, contests should be allowed.



Coinciding with the national executive meeting, the BJP organized a Parivartan (Change) rally in Dehradun on Friday, Sept. 8. Speakers at the rally, meant to kick off the party’s campaign for the coming Assembly elections in Uttaranchal, flogged the same issues highlighted at the national executive meeting. Former Prime Minister Vajpayee said, “Why the Government is not prepared to put checks on Pakistan. The country has not yet been able to know who and how serial train blasts in Mumbai were executed. The intelligence agencies seem to be in a passive mode.”



Party president Rajnath Singh called for stringent laws to deal with the problem of terrorism. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had given rise to many questions by not singing Vande Mataram.



The party sought to put the focus on farmers for the coming Assembly elections in four states.







The BJP conclave reportedly decided to rely on former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh for its campaign in that state. It was decided that no leader be projected for the Uttaranchal election.



The BJP also announced plans during the conclave to launch a nation-wide agitation against spiraling prices and to focus on the farmers’ plight in distressed states like Maharashtra, Orissa and Karnataka.



On the sidelines of the conclave, the BJP high command gave a dressing down to Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan for “mishandling” the Ujjain incident relating to the alleged killing of a college professor by students belonging to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidayarthi Parishad.



Sources disclosed that senior party leaders including L.K. Advani, Rajnath Singh, Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj and Sanjay Joshi met Chouhan. Swaraj told Chouhan that there was “no need” for him to describe the killing of the lecturer H.S. Sabharwal as an “accident.” Chouhan, on the other hand, said that he had only stated that “this is a different kind of incident.” The leaders reportedly appeared unconvinced by the Chief Minister’s claim. Rajnath Singh told Chouhan that it was only one word used by him which had led to the present build-up of the incident.





JDU leaders autocrats : Fernandes



Meanwhile, dissensions continue in the second most important party in the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA). NDA convener George Fernandes had been lashing out at his own party government in Bihar with Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as his target.



Speaking in Patna on Sept. 8, Fernandes branded Nitish Kumar and JDU president Sharad Yadav as “autocrats”, while rubbishing reports that he was planning to quit the party and his Muzaffarpur Lok Sabha seat due to strained relations with them.



The NDA convenor’s campaign against the Nitish Kumar Government began during his two-day visit to his Muzaffarpur constituency. Addressing public meetings, Fernandes said Nitish had failed to live up to the people’s expectations.



In the party elections in May this year, Fernandes was badly defeated by Yadav. Relations between Nitish and Fernandes have been strained for a long time now. It was reflected in the last general elections when Fernandes was virtually forced to leave his Nalanda seat and contest from Muzaffarpur. Nitish had contested from two seats - Nalanda and Barh - and lost the latter.