Senior ministers in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government, the former chief minister of a particular state who was projected as the party nominee for Uttar Pradesh election for the post of chief minister, and a former state unit party president were prevented from speaking at the national executive on Monday in New Delhi.

This was promptly denied by party spokesman Prakash Javadekar. "There are people from the other states who also wanted to speak," he said. Kalyan Singh presented the party resolution on Ram Setu, he claimed.

Speaking about the discussion on the party's defeat in Uttar Pradesh, Javadekar conceded that though the people of the state were angry with Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party, the benefit did not go to the BJP.

"The people thought that Mayawati was a better choice. But next time around you would get astonishing results from the state," he said.

This claim made even serious journalists smile. "You mean next time you would not get even that many seats?" they asked.

Javadekar was forced to take evasive action and correct his statement, saying he did not mean that. "In the last elections in about 50 seats, we lost by a 35,000 margin," he admitted.

Professor Tad S Murthy made a presentation on the Setu Samudaran Project, which had nine prominent points.

According to him, the project if carried out, would wipe out the thorium sands of Kerala's [Images] coastline, affect the ecology of the area and threaten many species of fish.

Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and leader of opposition Lal Kishenchand Advani would address the gathering on Tuesday and Rajnath Singh, as the party president, will also deliver the keynote address.