The Hindu : BJP MP from defects to Cong.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Nov 12, 2003

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BJP MP from defects to Cong.

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI NOV. 11. The Bharatiya Janata Party today confirmed that its Lok Sabha MP, P.K. Khunte, representing the Sarangarh constituency in Chhattisgarh, had defected to the Congress, but it hoped that he would return to the party in the next few days.

Mr. Khunte today reportedly said in Raipur that the BJP had no leader in Chhattisgarh and he would like to see the Chief Minister, Ajit Jogi, get a second term.

PM's Rajasthan schedule

The party today announced that the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, would begin his election campaign on November 18 from Rajasthan where he would address public meetings in Bikaner and Udaipur. The next day he is scheduled to address two meetings in Madhya Pradesh — Jabalpur and Indore — while on November 20 he will be in Delhi helping with the campaign in the capital.

The Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, will campaign in Chhattisgarh on November 18, in Rajasthan on November 19 and in Madhya Pradesh on November 20. The other details have not yet been finalised. The party president, Venkaiah Naidu, and the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, are the other two "star'' campaigners. But throughout the two weeks before polling, the senior leaders Murli Manohar Joshi, Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, will address a large number of meetings.

Repeatedly the party has emphasised that it will focus on "misgovernance'' by the Congress-ruled States — Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. The fifth State going to the polls is Mizoram, where the BJP does not have much of a political base but hopes to enter the Assembly.

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BJP MP from defects to Cong.