COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Advani to lead BJP into electoral battle

Amberish K Diwanji in New Delhi

With the election scene slowly hotting up, the two main parties are girding their loins; and today, both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress made specific moves. The BJP's election charge will be led by none other than L K Advani, while Sonia Gandhi will now start holding biweekly durbars for the public at her residence.

According to highly-placed Congress sources, "Madam will now be available to the people who can directly tell her their grievances." The public can meet Sonia Gandhi on Wednesdays and Fridays when, for half an hour from 1630 hours onwards, she will hold a darshan (viewing) session.

In another development, the Congress party has decided to renominate all the present 140 members of the Lok Sabha. "And in the remaining seats, the most important factor will be the ability to win," said the sources, hinting at a burial of the commitment to the 33 pc reservation for women. With very few women considered capable of winning what is expected go be a close contest, the party is likely to play safe and nominate potential winners (mostly males).

Meanwhile, on the other side, Advani, the man credited with making the BJP a potent electoral force, will once again lead his team into battle. Party officials maintain that it is normal practice to appoint a person to chair the Committee for National Campaign and Election Management, pointing out that when Advani was party president Pramod Mahajan had thus been selected.

However, highly-placed sources indicated that the party leadership is unwilling to take any chances and will trust the entire party setup to Advani.

Advani stepped down from the party presidentship after he became home minister, making way for the septuagenarian Thakre. Today, the latter suffers the ignominy of being called the BJP's 'Sitaram Kesri', the unimaginative Congress party president who was 'displaced' by Sonia Gandhi last year.

In another move, the BJP and its allies will adopt a name for its common front while its national agenda for governance, which was written when the 18-party coalition took office last year, will be their manifesto. However, the parties would fight separately under their own symbols, Thakre said. The party president was categorical that fractious issues such as the Ram temple would not be part of the agenda or manifesto. "We will only go by what already exists in the national agenda for governance," he declared.

The party is also strongly projecting Atal Bihari Vajpayee as its prime ministerial candidate, and is harping on him being wrongly robbed of his due. Though Vajpayee had earlier said he would not fight elections anymore, that idea has clearly been nixed.

Thakre said his party was preparing its list of candidates and other details, all of which would be ready in 15 days' time. He downplayed his absence from the election committee, saying as party president he was at liberty to attend all deliberations.

Tell us what you think of this report