BJP unveils plans for polls

The Bharatiya Janata Party has drawn up a 25-point plan titled 'Mission 2004' for securing 300 seats in the Lok Sabha polls. The party has also unveiled a five-point programme for the assembly polls in four states later this year.

Briefing reporters at the close of the two-day national level meeting of the party in Hyderabad on Friday, party president M Venkaiah Naidu said, "We are going to fight the next Lok Sabha polls on the slogan of Vikas (development) and good governance. Hindutva is not going to be a poll issue."

Naidu said the main aim of Mission 2004 is to project the BJP as a 'nation-first party, pro-poor, pro-farmer, pro-rural and a party committed to development'. He added that the actual manifesto would be unveiled only before the elections next year.

He said a campaign would be launched to educate the people on important issues such as Prevention of Terrorism Act, dangers of infiltration, scrapping of Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunals) Act, National Council of Educational Research and Training syllabus, need for an anti-conversion law, ban on cow slaughter, interlinking of rivers, population control and the need for providing reservation for economically backward people.

Naidu said, "We have proved that we are capable of providing stability and able leadership. We are going to contest and carry on the campaign for next polls under the leadership of Vajpayeeji. We have decided to project him as Vikas Purush and a visionary and Deputy Prime Minister Advani as the Loha Purush (Iron Man)."

Naidu said the five-point programme for the assembly polls -- Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and New Delhi -- will focus on the work division among the party's office bearers, workers mobilisation and gearing up of the party machinery at all levels.

Special attention would be paid to voters list, including verification and identification since the Congress governments had resorted to 'scientific rigging' even before the polls by tampering with voters' lists, he said.

The party leaders would take up yatras to every nook and corner of these states for creating awareness among the people about the party, he said.

The Congress, which he said was afraid of the BJP, was trying to kick up a row over the distribution of tridents by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad in Rajasthan, the offering of prasad at Hanuman mandir by Uma Bharathi in Madhya Pradesh and the smear campaign against Vajpayee alleging that he was a beef-eater.   

He said the party's slogan to the party workers was to make the party strong to make India powerful. 

He said the BJP's goal was to make India a developed nation and catch up with countries such as the United States, Germany, Japan and China.

"This is not an election campaign. It is a campaign to educate and arouse the consciousness of people. It is not a partisan or a political campaign," he said.

A three-day meeting of the national executive will be organised at Raipur from July 18 to 20 to review the preparations for the polls.