The Hindu : National : BJP 'vigilance squads' for third phase

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 05, 2004

National

National

BJP 'vigilance squads' for third phase

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, MAY 4. The Bharatiya Janata Party has decided to position "vigilance squads'' (nigrani dal) comprising its youth cadre at thousands of booths in a large number of Lok Sabha constituencies which go to the polls tomorrow.

The party general secretary and spokesperson, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said at a press conference today that the idea was to "counter the violence'' likely to be unleashed by other parties and to "help people vote fearlessly." He would meet the Election Commission and inform it of the decision and the party's fears of violence.

Answering a question, Mr. Naqvi said the party did have faith in the Commission, but in 1999 when the party did not put its "ten youth per booth'' idea into practice it had lost heavily in Uttar Pradesh. "This time the party will revive that practice as part of its strategy,'' Mr. Naqvi said.

Mr. Naqvi said the BJP cadre deployed at these booths would behave in a "non-partisan and independent'' manner.

Asked whether such a "deployment'' of party cadre would increase the chances of violence as other parties could go in for a similar deployment of their "youth brigades", he said: "Other parties do not have the resources for setting up such vigilance squads. We have the cadre, the men to do this to check `goondas' from other parties.'' He added that "instructions'' had been given to the party's units in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to set up the "vigilance squads."

He described the next phase of elections tomorrow as the "Waterloo of the Congress." While 83 seats go to the polls, the BJP is contesting 75 and its allies 8. In the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP had won 34 of these seats while its allies had won 7. This time the BJP's aim is to "capture 65 of the 75 seats we are contesting.''

Party sources said the BJP had already brought its cadre from Gujarat and Maharashtra, where elections are over, to camp and work in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

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