The Hindu : New Delhi News : BJP hopes to convert sugar prices into bitter pill for Congress

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 08, 2005

New Delhi

New Delhi

BJP hopes to convert sugar prices into bitter pill for Congress

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, JAN. 7. The Bharatiya Janata Party is hoping that the high price of sugar will do to the Congress party in Haryana what the price of onions had done to it in Delhi and elsewhere in 1994, even though the two situations are not entirely comparable. The BJP is hoping for a "miracle'' to deliver it in the State.

The BJP general secretary and "prabhari" in-charge of Haryana, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, said that since the Lok Sabha elections in May last year the situation had changed and slowly the support base of the Congress party had eroded. "The price of sugar will spoil the Congress show, just as the price of onions affected us adversely (in Delhi in 1994),'' he said. "You may see a miracle,'' he added.

Mr. Chauhan was today closeted with his party's Haryana leaders finalising the State units recommendations for the list of 51 candidates still to be selected.

Five days ago the party had released the first list of 39 candidates and it is hoping to "more or less'' finalise all the names on January 9, when the party's Central Election Committee will be meeting again.

Mr. Chauhan's optimism was given an additional push today when several members of a political formation called Ekta Shakti joined the BJP along with a former "leader'' of the Indian National Lok Dal. Mr. Chauhan pointed out that some of the persons who have joined today had contested the Lok Sabha polls last year and had polled 8,000 to 17,000 votes although none of them won a seat. "In North Haryana our party will be strengthened by this addition,'' he said.

On January 10 the party will release its State manifesto simultaneously in six Haryana towns -- Hissar, Rohtak, Panipat, Rewari, Gurgaon and Chandigarh. And on January 15, the day after Makar Sakranti "when the sun changes direction, we hope to start our campaign from seven places in the State to change the political direction of Haryana,'' Mr. Chauhan said.

The water from the Sutlej-Yamuna Link Canal is one of the major issues the BJP is hoping to corner the Congress with.

It was a Congress-ruled State, Punjab, which had flatly refused to honour its agreement with Haryana on this canal and the matter is still pending before the Supreme Court after the Centre sought direction. As for the ruling party, the INLD, corruption and deteriorating law and order are the two issues identified by the BJP.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi

News Update

Stories in this Section