14 June 2003
BJP
BRAIN STORMING TO DECIDE POLL DATES?
From Jal
Khambata
NEW DELHI: The secret purpose of the ruling
Bhartiya Janata Party's 4-day "chintan baithak"
(brain-storming session) in Mumbai from Tuesday has finally leaked
out. The top brass of BJP and RSS will be putting heads together to
decide the dates for the Lok Sabha mid-term poll.
The mid-term
poll is not a new proposal. Top leaders of the party have been
secretly planning for it since early this year but a sharp division
among them on the exact timing has led to the Mumbai session to
decide whether it will be in November alongwith the five state
Assembly elections or in February-March.
In fact, the Mumbai
session is the second meeting of the top leaders to debate on the
mid-term polls. The first time they discussed it was at a closed-door
meeting at the time of the last national executive of the party at
Indore on April 4 and 5 when the state units were told to give
assessment of prospects if elections were held early.
This
writer had scooped on March 17 about the BJP's secret planning for
the mid-term poll and how Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had
even directed a soft budget to give advantage to the party if the
poll were held in November. The BJP has been, however, consistent in
denying the mid-term poll so far and rightly so since the formal
decision is yet to be taken.
A false impression has, however,
gone around that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has sprung a
surprise of forcing the Mumbai session to discuss the mid-term poll
and that he wants to hurry with an early poll to ensure the tenure of
another five years and thus blanking prospects of Lal Krishna Advani
projecting himself as "Loh Purush" (Iron Man) to usurp his
seat.
In fact, both Vajpayee and Advani are party to the plot
to take the nation and political parties by surprise by announcing a
snap poll. Vajpayee wants to lead the BJP to victory once again and
then call it a day and he is in a desperate hurry to do so.
Human
Resources Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi also knows that
Vajpayee is preparing to hand over the baton and hence he has been
making all possible noises only to scuttle an otherwise foregone
conclusion that the baton will be passed over to Advani.
As
the party sources insist, Advani's acceptability to the other
partners in the National Democratic Alliance is meaningless as no
party can dictate to the BJP as to who will be its leader and the PM
is bound to be from the BJP which is the single largest party in the
amalgam. Other NDA partners do not total up in number even together
to match the BJP's strength.
Insiders say the idea of an early
mid-term poll came from Vajpayee and it was a subsequent ingenuity of
Advani to cook up celebration of what he hailed as the completion of
five years of the Prime Ministership of Vajpayee.
All these
years the BJP has been playing the stability card to affirm that
Vajpayee will complete the full term of five years. That can happen
only if the polls are held after five years in September 2004.
Early
this year, Advani, however, cleverly added upthe days of the previous
Vajpayee government that fell on the question of majority in the Lok
Sabha and its days as the caretaker government to proclaim Vajpayee
has already finished five years in office as the PM.
And, that
had set the pace for the mid-term poll. Top Finance Ministry
bureaucrats who accompanied Finance Minister Jaswant Singh last
February to seek Vajpayee's guidance were the first to know an
otherwise closely-guarded BJP secret of the mid-term poll.
Vajpayee
had told them to give a good and soft budget that helps in the
elections. They knew what the PM meant; he won't ask for the soft
budget this year if the polls are in September 2004 as that soft
budget can be next February and not last February.
The PM's
worry was monsoon. There have been three bad monsoons and drought in
more than eight states. Counting on an early weather forecast given
to him that it may be a good monsoon this year, Vajpayee felt
November can be better time for the polls instead of September 2004
when it can be again a bad monsoon year.
The BJP can have an
added advantage of the anti-incumbancy factor in November since four
Congress-ruled states of Delhi, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and
Chhattisgarh will also be going for the assembly polls at that
time.
A section of the party leaders, led by President M
Venkaiah Naidu, however, wants the Assembly elections to be a
"semi-final" to watch popularity of the party and then go
for the mid-term poll in February or March.
Naidu is counting
on an optimistic assessment of the party that it will sweep out the
Congress from power in at least three out of four states and that
will set a momentum to gain by holding the snap poll in
February.
The Prime Minister is attending the Mumbai "chintan
baithak" on three of the four days and not just for a day as he
has to steer the proposal for the Lok Sabha polls in November
alongwith the five Assembly elections, countering the propaganda
already launched by other section through media leaks for polls in
February only.
At his meeting with Uttar Pradesh Chief
Minister Mayawati in Delhi on Friday, Vajpayee had also advised her
to be ready for a mid-term Assembly poll in Uttar Pradesh if the
current trend of wholesale defections continues to trouble her. He
reportedly even authorised Mayawati to make public the possibility of
a mid-term Assembly election in November.
Sources in the Prime
Minister's Office say the Government may even approach the Election
Commission for holding in November itself other Assembly elections
that are otherwise due next year if the Lok Sabha elections are to be
held in November. That will save a lot of money otherwise spent on
holding the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections separately.
BJP
President Venkaiah Naidu was quick in asserting that elections will
be held only after the Vajpayee Government completes full five-year
term to shut the speculation triggered by the beans spilled by his
new General Secretary Pramod Mahajan in Chhattisgarh, telling a party
workers' camp to prepare for a mid-term poll, maybe in February or
earlier.
Pramod Mahajan is busy preparing a powerpoint presentation, with the help
of his computer guys, for the Mumbai "chintan baithak" on how the
electoral map of the country has changed drastically since 1999 and what
are strengths and weaknesses of BJP and its NDA allies in the changed
scenario.
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