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BJP CMs’ call: expose ’betrayal’ of aam aadmi

Neena Vyas

Poll issues will be terrorism, price rise, problems in agriculture

— Photos: Shanker Chakravarty

In the photograph at the top, BJP prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani with party president Rajnath Singh and Venkaiah Naidu (left) at a party meeting in New Delhi on Thursday. Present at the meeting, in the picture above, are Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled States Shivraj Singh Chouhan (Madhya Pradesh), Prem Kumar Dhumal (Himachal Pradesh), B.C. Khanduri (Uttarakhand), Narendra Modi (Gujarat), Raman Singh (Chhattisgarh) and B.S. Yeddyurappa (Karnataka).

NEW DELHI: An aggressive Lok Sabha election campaign to expose the United Progressive Alliance’s “betrayal” of the aam aadmi (common man) was suggested by a conclave of BJP Chief Ministers here on Thursday.

“Where is that Congress hand supporting the hand of the man in the street,” party leader M. Venkaiah Naidu asked briefing journalists, after the meeting held at the residence of BJP prime ministerial candidate L.K. Advani. The party would focus on the UPA’s failure and its broken promises.

After the 150-minute brainstorming session, the BJP leaders were apparently not able to come up with any new campaign issue.

Terrorism, price rise, problems in the agriculture sector and unemployment were mentioned as the topics identified, although party leaders have been privately admitting that terrorism failed to give the BJP any advantage in the recent Assembly elections and that the inflation rate had come down significantly and could slide further after another cut in petroleum prices.

It was obvious from Mr. Naidu’s remarks that the BJP would attempt to steal the thunder from the UPA’s “achievement” of around 9 per cent growth over four years. “In the first few years” the UPA did well “because the NDA handed to the UPA an economy in resilient mode.”

Mr. Naidu charged the UPA with following a divisive agenda. Mr. Naidu said Mr. Advani talked about the need to focus on the promise of “good governance” by a BJP-led government at the Centre.

The former Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha, dwelt on development and welfare.

Besides the Chief Ministers — Narendra Modi, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, B.S. Yeddyurappa, Prem Kumar Dhumal, Raman Singh and B.C. Khanduri — senior Ministers from Orissa, Punjab and Bihar, where the BJP is part of the ruling coalitions, attended the meeting . Party president Rajnath Singh; general secretaries Ramlal, Arun Jaitley and Ananth Kumar; and Sushma Swaraj were also present.

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