The Hindu : BJP begins exercise to assess strength

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 03, 2004

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

BJP begins exercise to assess strength

By Our Special Correspondent

VISAKHAPATNAM, MARCH 2. The State unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party will complete its pre-poll exercise of assessing its strength as well as its candidates within a week.

Informing this to reporters here on Monday, the party vice-president, S.V. Seshagiri Rao, said that at present, three teams were holding district-level meetings as part of the exercise.

He conducted meetings of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam and East Godavari districts in the city while the BJP national executive memeber, P.V. Chalapathi Rao, was involved in a similar exercise at Tirupati for Nellore and Rayalaseema.

The State BJP general secretary, K. Haribabu, was conducting meetings for districts in Telangana. "We will cover the rest of the districts on Tuesday. I am going to Hyderabad to look into the affairs of south Telangana districts while Mr. Chalapathi Rao will be in Vijayawada to cover West Godavari, Krishna, Guntur and Prakasam districts. We are assessing district-wise the strength of the party and candidates. The lists would be handed over to our State president, N. Indrasena Reddy, who will in turn take them to the Central leaders -- Arun Jaitley and Pramod Mahajan -- when they visit Hyderabad in the next four or five days and give them an update on the party's position,'' Prof. Seshagiri Rao said.

The teams would apprise Central leaders of the situation and at a convenient time for the Telugu Desam party leadership. Mr. Mahajan and Mr. Jaitley would finalise seat adjustments between the BJP and the TDP. "We are very clear on our side and the TDP is also clear. I don't see any problem on coming to an understanding on seat-sharing.'' The BJP leader, who is also the chairman of the party's State manifesto committee, said that he would like to call it a BJP agenda rather than a manifesto. The agenda would be on three aspects: optimum utilisation of water resources, exploration of natural gas and oil reserves in the Krishna-Godavari Basin and development of coastal economic resources.

Explaining the agenda, he said that surplus waters of the Godavari river would be utilised by implementing the Ichchampalli and Polavaram projects benefiting 50 lakh acres additionally, particularly the upland regions.

On the coastal economic development, he said studies had already been conducted and efforts would be made for the uplift of fishermen and Backward Classes. The State BJP general secretary, K. Lakshman, and its other vice-presidents -- Somu Veerraju and Vijayalakshmi -- were also present.

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