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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