The Hindu : Jaitley to flag off BJP `yatra' in MP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 15, 2003

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National

Jaitley to flag off BJP `yatra' in MP

By Our Staff Correspondent

BHOPAL APRIL 14. The Union Law Minister, Arun Jaitley, will flag off a "Sankalp yatra" from a temple in Jam Sabri near Pandhurna in Chhindwara district on Wednesday, signalling the beginning of the BJP campaign for the coming Assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh.

The "yatra", led by the party's star campaigner, Uma Bharti, would reach Pandhurna where the first public rally has been organised.

Besides Mr. Jaitley, the Madhya Pradesh BJP president, Kailash Joshi, and Ms. Bharti would address the rally.

The "yatra" managers said today that the rallies would be a "befitting reply" to the Congressmen enthused by the success of Ms. Gandhi's day-long rallies on April 12.

The three rallies of Ms. Gandhi — at Bakswaha in Chhatarpur district, Biohari in Shahdol district and at the district headquarters of Mandla — were great crowd-pullers.

The credit for their success obviously goes to the "village government" committees, set in place by the Digvijay Singh Government across the State.

The BJP views these committees and their representative character with concern.

The State BJP leaders acknowledged that the ruling Congress had been able to expand its band of committed followers to interior villages through these committees. However, they did not seem overly concerned on this count as they pointed out that the majority of the electorate in the coming elections would be voting for a change as "they are fed up with the ongoing electricity crisis, the poor condition of roads, infrastructure and rampant corruption".

They said the elections would be fought on these issues. This was even reiterated by the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, and the BJP president, Venkaiah Naidu, at the Indore rally on April 4.

Ms. Gandhi, on her part, lashed out at the BJP while addressing her rallies. At the kisan rally at Bakswaha in Chhatarpur district, she castigated the BJP for its anti-farmer policies saying that farmers were being forced to commit suicide. She urged the people to support the Congress and teach the BJP "a lesson" as they had done in Himachal Pradesh.

At Mandla, she said the BJP wanted to divide the society and cling to power at any cost.

And at the Gram Swaraj Sammelan at Biohari in Shahdol district, she said the BJP had failed miserably and forgotten its pre-election promise that it would work towards rooting out hunger, corruption and fear.

After the first volley of attack and counter-attack from the top leaders of the BJP and the Congress, it is now time for the second line of command to take over and play their role in the highly polarised election arena of Madhya Pradesh.

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