The Hindu : Other States / Rajasthan News : 'Target 25' a count too many

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 05, 2004

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Other States - Rajasthan

'Target 25' a count too many

By Sunny Sebastian

JAIPUR APRIL 4. After its initial projection of "Target 25" in Rajasthan, the Bharatiya Janata Party is sounding not so confident about achieving this goal of winning all the 25 Lok Sabha seats in the State. Even when the party is considered to be in a better position than its main rival, the Congress, improving further on the present tally of 16 seats appears to be a tough task.

Of course, "Pachees mein pachees" (25 out of 25) could be yet another slogan given by the slogan-friendly national president of the BJP, Venkaiah Naidu as the party has allocated one seat -- Banswara (ST) -- to the Janata Dal (United), its partner in the National Democratic Alliance to contest. Even if one considers that a Janata Dal(U) seat is as good as a BJP seat for NDA, nothing short of a wave would make the party win from all the remaining 24 seats.

"The BJP will improve upon its position in Rajasthan," the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, who was in the State for three days on his "Bharat Uday Yatra" after starting from Porbander in Gujarat last week, said. Mr. Advani, who toured Rajasthan after making an entry at Ratanpur in Dungarpur district covered the districts of Udaipur, Chittorgarh, Bhilwara, Ajmer, Jaipur, Dausa and Bharatpur before entering Agra in Uttar Pradesh yesterday.

"There is hope and enthusiasm in the minds of people. The NDA support has increased," Mr. Advani pointed out while interacting with the mediapersons here the other day. "It looks like double feel good. The good work done under Vajpayeeji's leadership and the performance of the State Government, led by Vasundhara Raje in the State are the reason," he said.

"The party workers I met all along by yatra and the Chief Minister herself talk about a clean sweep by the BJP in Rajasthan. It all depends on the public... Yet one thing is certain. Our support base has grown and we will get more seats," Mr. Advani claimed. Though positive, Mr. Advani surely sounded cautious.

Perhaps his diffidence comes from the fact that barring the Mewar region (Dungarpur, Udaipur, Chittorgarh and Bhilwara) the crowds at the public meetings addressed by him were far from impressive. The biggest gathering for him was at Bhichiwada in Dungarpur, which was also Mr. Advani's first meeting after entering from Gujarat.

Even at Jaipur, despite the venue being Tripolia, a favourite spot for the Sangh Parivar from the Jan Sangh times, the crowd which came to listen to Mr. Advani on the evening of his second day in the State was not much. The worst of it came when they started leaving as he commenced his speech.

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