The Hindu : National : BJP to focus on Uttar Pradesh, Bihar

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 22, 2004

National

National

BJP to focus on Uttar Pradesh, Bihar

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, APRIL 21. The poll performance of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies was reviewed at a high-level meeting at the residence of the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, today against the backdrop of most exit polls for the first phase of polling on Tuesday predicting just a bare majority for the BJP and its National Democratic Alliance partners.

One of the conclusions arrived at the meeting was that the BJP must "focus" on Uttar Pradesh and step up its campaign in the State, which accounts for 80 Lok Sabha seats. Apparently, the view that emerged was that the party would do reasonably well in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, where there is little challenge from the Congress, but to improve its tally in the remaining phases of polling, it would have to make extra efforts in U.P. and Bihar.

The hour-long meeting was attended by the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, the party president, Venkaiah Naidu, the BJP general secretary, Pramod Mahajan, who is in charge of elections, and the Union Law Minister, Arun Jaitley, in charge of elections in Karnataka. Apparently, Mr. Vajpayee spoke to the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Chandrababu Naidu, this morning and "Babu was confident of forming the State Government," one party leader said.

As part of the "strategy" for U.P., it was decided that a group of "Muslim intellectuals" would take out a `yatra' in the State to appeal to the minorities "to give the BJP a chance," Mr. Naidu said.

Addressing a press conference, he made another appeal to the electorate to give the NDA a "decisive majority" that would enable the new government to complete the "unfinished task" of development, bring in legislation "without bothering to gather support from here and there," and "amend the Constitution." His appeal to the minorities was: give us one more chance.

About 10 days ago, Mr. Naidu had told the press that wherever he had been, he had seen "wave-like conditions" in the country, but today he was appealing for a "decisive majority."

He said opinion and exit polls had made it clear that the BJP was ahead in the race. "The only question is of a clear majority ... there are variations in the polls."

It seems that the top party leadership is not at ease with the exit polls, which are almost one in saying that the tally of the BJP and the NDA will hover around the base majority mark and that in the first phase of polling, the alliance will lose about eight to 10 seats compared to its 1999 position.

That, party leaders said, was behind Mr. Vajpayee's comment at a rally in Nagpur that he was tired of running a coalition with over 20 parties.

The BJP is now looking for a majority with just half-a-dozen partners.

The BJP seems confident that it will do well in Karnataka but is not at all sure what the Bihar results will bring.

And most of all, U.P. is giving it considerable anxiety. At the same time, Mr. Naidu said that while the NDA was confident of "victory," the Congress was fighting "just for its survival." The "Congress should accept defeat," he added.

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