4 June 2003

CONFUSION BJP'S HIDDEN AGENDA FOR POLLS?

From Jal Khambata

NEW DELHI: The Bhartiya Janata Party appears to be working simultaneously on two agendas for the next round of Assembly elections and then the Lok Sabha elections. The public posture is to ask for votes in the name of "governance and development" while the hidden agenda is to resort to the tried and tested RSS tactic of creating confusion.

Nothing much to showcase as success of its government to garner votes, the BJP's top leaders led by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee have already begun playing the hidden agenda tactfully to create confusion and thus divert attention of the people from the real issues affecting the commonman.  His flipflop on Kashmir has left everybody gasping as to what he really wants to do with Pakistan.

The Congress is panicky as it has realised quickly that the BJP is rolling out rumours, deceit and doublespeak to create confusion and it does not know how to fight the confusion as it cannot even guess what all lies will be rolled out by the BJP to make confusion worse confounded day by day.

One day, BJP President M Venkaiah Naidu says the party would use two "mascots" in the polls -- Atal Bihari Vajpayee as "Vikas Purush" (Man of Development) and Lal Krishna Advani as "Loh Purush" (Iron Man).

Within 24 hours, he changes the tune saying the party would bank upon "name and work" of Vajpayee as the party's top leader. He goes on to assert that Advani is "only No 2" in the party.

Congress spokesman Anand Sharma on Wednesday taunted that the BJP is going to polls not with two "mascots" as Naidu announced on Monday but with three "mascots", the third one being Naidu himself as the "Bhram Purush" (Man of Confusion."

He pointed out that Naidu is trying to create confusion on every possible political or national issue on which the BJP can build support in the elections and in support he cited Naidu's remarks at a rally in Rampur town of Uttar Pradesh last week, declaring that the mosque can be built next to ('bagal mein' he said in Hindi) the Ram Temple to be built on the site where once the demolished Babri Mosque stood.

The next day Naidu turned around and claimed he never said the mosque can be built adjacent to the Ram Mandir. How can it be, he asked. Obviously, he had to modify the stand since the Sangh Parivar was angry and the VHP leaders publicly started criticising him.

And, then he put the "Muslim mask" of general secretary-cum-spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to declare at a meeting of the BJP's minority cell as to where the mosque should be built -- five kms away from the Ram Mandir.

Naidu claimed his Rampur speech has been misquoted and when the Media protested pointing out that they had video-taped the speech, Naqvi, who was on the dias at the meeting, was quick to plead that Naidu did not mean what he said and he quoted the goofup to the poor knowledge of Naidu. Naqvi said Naidu being a man from the South has been fast in picking up Hindi but still he may not be perfect in its niceties to realise the import of what he had said in Rampur.

The Congress spokesman took strong exception to the Prime Minister announcing from a foreign land that he was prepared for a "serious compromise" on Kashmir without ever discussing what kind of compromise he is aiming at with the political parties or in Parliament or first developing a consensus within the country before making such statements.

Vajpayee's latest remarks on return from the foreign tour Tuesday night that talks with Pakistan would be first on the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was also questioned by Congress spokesman Anand Sharma. He was, however, quite honest: "We do not know which statement should be taken seriously."

He sought to draw the only conclusion from the PM's flip-flops that it reflects persona of a mindset of issuing contradictory statements on major issues and thus confuse the whole nation.

The Congress had sought to gain an upper hand among the upper castes like Brahmins by suddenly resurrecting the issue of reservation to upper castes on the basis of the economic criteria to benefit the poor among them.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot threw the bombshell of getting a resolution passed by his Cabinet and forwarded to the Centre to give 14 per cent reservation to the economically backwards among the upper castes and Congress President Sonia Gandhi put her stamp on the idea at the Srinagar conclave of the chief ministers. On Monday, the Congress demanded a Constitutional amendment in the coming monsoon session of Parliament to give this reservation.

It was the reservation card for the backward classes that was played by then Prime Minister V P Singh to cause much embarrassment to the Congress but Sonia's advisors now think they can play the same card to gain votes of the upper castes who are otherwise solid voters of the BJP.

Confusion is the best formula the BJP has to sabotage any issue that the Congress tries to build up and so it quickly announced that the party wants a national commission to consider the reservation to the economically backwards among the upper castes.

While the Congress is still dubbing this commission business as dilatory tactic to avoid the reservation to the upper castes before the next elections, the BJP-led NDA Government has quietly worked out a new bonanza of reservations to be bestowed upon several castes spread over several states.

Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani has quietly done his homework to prepare a proposal for the Union Cabinet's consideration on Thursday to expand the list of the OBCs by granting a score of influential castes in seven states, including the election-bound Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.

Advani wants the list cleared before he flies off to the foreign tour of America and Britain two days later. He could quickly pull out name of the OBCs who can be declared OBCs by making his Home Ministry officials run through the recommendations of the state governments that were otherwise put in the cold storage.

In Rajasthan, the Cabinet note recommends reservation to the Silawat community by declaring it as OBC (Other Backward Classes) but excluding Sompura and Murtikal sub-castes.

In Andhra Pradesh, tne note wants the reservation given to Tarupa Kaapu, a dominant caste in Srikakulam, Vijayanagaram and Vishakhapatnam districts.

In Karnataka, the most influential Gowda or Gauda caste is sought to be declared OBC while Nashy Sukh and Shershabadia are the communities identified for being bracketed in the list of the OBCs. Orissa, Haryana and Delhi are three other states whose OBC lists are being expanded.

In Delhi that also goes to polls in November, the Julaha-Ansari caste is to be declared OBC. Though a small community who cannot change the BJP's fortunes, their grievance was that all other Julaha sects are on the Scheduled Castes list, they have been left behind.

Yet another issue jacked by the Congress through its Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh to demand a national ban on cow slaughter was similarly blown out by the BJP by creating a confusion of first making postures to go for the ban in the budget session of Parliament itself and then dumping it by circulating a proposed Constitution amendment bill and wanting the states to first endorse it.

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