The Hindu : National : Uma to take out `yatra'

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Saturday, May 13, 2006

National

National

Uma to take out `yatra'

Neena Vyas

The `yatra' would take her from Rameswaram to Badrinath

NEW DELHI: The expelled Bharatiya Janata Party leader Uma Bharti on Friday announced that she will take out another `yatra' on Saturday. The `yatra' would take her from Rameswaram to Badrinath over five months, she said.

Her newly set-up party, the Bharatiya Jana Shakti fared poorly not only against Congress president Sonia Gandhi in the Rae Bareli Lok Sabha by-election — her candidate Prabha Lodhi was supported by the Apna Dal — managed to secure just over 1,200 votes. But even in her home turf of Madhya Pradesh, where she had supported Gulzar Singh Markam, a candidate of a Gondwana tribals' party, in an effort to humble Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, her party candidate scored just under 8,000 votes.

On Sonia's victory

Asked why her party had done so poorly, Ms. Bharti responded by saying that she did not accept the Rae Bareli result as "Sonia Gandhi may be an Indian citizen, but she is not Indian." She promised to come back after two years to prove who is a real Indian.

She said she had campaigned hard in Rae Bareli — "I addressed 80 public meetings." She did not agree that voters had finally put at rest the controversy over Ms. Gandhi's "foreign origin."

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