The Hindu : National : BJP not over-reacting to exit polls: Jaitley

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Sunday, May 02, 2004

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National

BJP not over-reacting to exit polls: Jaitley

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MAY 1. The Law Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson, Arun Jaitley, today raised the spectre of 1996 when within two years the country saw several Prime Ministers come and go before the Government fell in 1998.

Speaking informally to a few reporters, Mr. Jaitley pointed to the fight over the Prime Minister's chair that had already broken out among the non-National Democratic Alliance parties. Several leaders had started "dreaming" about becoming the Prime Minister, he added.

He denied that the BJP was over-reacting to the exit polls to play on the fear of "instability." His view was that stability in the polity was necessary for development, which was the BJP's main poll plank in this election. And the party has been recently emphasising that only a government led by the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, can give "stability'' to the polity.

In 1996, Mr. Vajpayee as leader of the BJP, the single largest party that emerged in that election, was sworn in as Prime Minister and asked to explore Government-formation. However, at that time the BJP was unable to get any other political party to join it in a coalition Government. Before asking for a vote of confidence in Parliament, Mr. Vajpayee resigned, and Deve Gowda was made the Prime Minister of the United Front Government with the Congress supporting it from outside. Mid-way, Mr. Gowda was replaced by Inder Kumar Gujral, and finally, the former Congress president, Sitaram Kesri, withdrew support to the Government causing it to fall and forcing another general election in 1998. Without going into these details, Mr. Jaitley seemed to be referring to this period of "instability.''

Mr. Jaitley denied that the BJP had changed its strategy in the middle of the election process to try and get extra mileage by focussing on the prime ministerial ambitions of leaders of the secular parties. Development remained its major poll plank, but stability was important as without that there could be no development, he said.

Mr. Jaitley expressed the hope that in the third phase of elections, especially in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP would pick up many more seats than it had in 1999 when it won eight of the 30 seats going to polls in the State on May 5.

However, several senior party leaders have said that the BJP is fighting hard to win the 28 of the 80 seats in all of U.P. that it had in 1999. Reports suggest that the Kalyan Singh factor is only working to the extent that it is preventing a further downslide of the party from the 1999 level. Party leaders are privately admitting that without Kalyan Singh's return to the BJP fold, the party could have gone down by another six to seven seats.

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