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Political Notes : Maharashtra : BJP-Shiv Sena settle differences

	October 09, 2006

Two days after the Shiv Sena threatened to walk out of its alliance with the BJP in Maharashtra over the Chimur byelection, the party settled for a compromise. It conceded the seat to the BJP and in exchange got the Kalyan Assembly seat in Thane.



Sena chief Bal Thackeray sealed the truce following a telephonic conversation between Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray and BJP chief Rajnath Singh. Sources said Rajnath Singh pacified Uddhav and said his party would treat the Sena as valued partner of the NDA.



The BJP president reportedly spoke to Uddhav twice on Friday, Oct. 5, to try and make him come round. He then got BJP leader Gopinath Munde to meet Bal Thackeray.



Both the partners in the 22 year old alliance were on a collision course over the Chimur byelection, necessitated by the desertion of incumbent Sena MLA Vijay Vadettiwar. A Narayan Rane supporter, Vadettiwar quit the party and resigned from the Assembly constituency to join the Congress.



The Sena had then made it a prestige issue to contest the election, and on Wednesday threatened to walk out of the alliance if the BJP insisted on contesting.





Generation next asserts itself in BJP



In a clear indication of the growing clout of the Generation Next and regional leaders, BJP veterans were forced last week to accommodate the wishes of state unit leaders in finalising the candidates for the three Lok Sabha by-elections taking place on November 6. In at least two of the three constituencies, the BJP old guard had thrown its weight behind candidates, who were rejected finally.



First was the case of Varun Gandhi, who enjoyed full backing of the seniors but was not considered from Vidisha under obvious pressure of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan.



In the second case, a senior leader tried to slip in the name of a political greenhorn from Bhagalpur, but the ticket went to former union minister Shahnawaz Hussain, backed by the Bihar unit.



Rampal Singh, Public Health and Engineering Minister in the Shivraj Singh Chauhan Cabinet, is the BJP’s candidate from Vidisha from where Varun Gandhi, son of former union minister and Member of Lok Sabha Maneka Gandhi, was in the race to get the ticket.



Party circles in New Delhi see the decision as significant because Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani was supporting Varun Gandhi’s candidature, while BJP president Rajnath Singh threw in his lot with the State unit.



It is learnt that although former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was initially in favour of inducting Varun Gandhi into the Lok Sabha - the Vidisha poll was seen as a good opportunity - at Friday’s meeting of the Central Election Committee, he took the view that nothing should be done against the wishes of the State unit.



In the Koderma Lok Sabha constituency in Jharkhand, the BJP expects a tough fight from Babulal Marandi, who resigned the seat after quitting the party. Pranab Kumar Verma, son of a former party MP Rit Lal Verma, has been given the ticket to contest the seat.





Congress Minister in Haryana resigns



The Jessica Lal murder case had its first impact last week with Haryana Power Minister Vinod Sharma resigning. Vinod Sharma is the father of Manu Sharma, prime accused in the murder case. He submitted his resignation to party president Sonia Gandhi which was later sent to state Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Huda and then to the Governor, for acceptance.



The demand for Vinod Sharma’s resignation had been gaining ground following a TV channel sting operation which alleged that he had influenced certain key witnesses in the murder case to save his son, Manu Sharma. Vinod Sharma said that he has quit to keep the “traditions” and “high values” of the Congress.



A lower court earlier this year had acquitted all the nine accused including Manu Sharma in the sensational April 1999 murder of the model Jessica Lal at a Delhi bar after witnesses retracted their original statements, enabling the accused to get off the hook. Delhi police has challenged the acquittal of the accused in the High Court which is now conducting a daily hearing of the case.