Attendance problem

It was lonely at the top. Neither Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi nor BJP President L K Advani managed to draw crowds the way the party had anticipated.

It was lonely at the top. Neither Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi nor BJP President L K Advani managed to draw crowds the way the party had anticipated.

On Sunday, Modi8217;s rally attracted a trickle of a little over two thousand in Ahwa, the district headquarters of Dangs. In his rallies at Dharampur and Mota Pondha in south Gujarat, the numbers were even fewer.

In fact, it was a repeat performance of L K Advani8217;s rally a day earlier.

Already worried over the failure of Advani to draw crowds, the BJP8217;s election steering committee did some brainstorming on Saturday. A party leader who was part of the deliberations said the issue was discussed in detail and a last attempt is now being made at cadre mobilisation, including pacifying fence sitting disgruntled elements.

Considering the response Congress chief Sonia Gandhi got at her Jamanpada rally in Chikhli south Gujarat, is it a sign of coming trouble for the BJP, at least in rural areas?

BJP spokesperson Vijay Rupani thinks otherwise. 8220;I don8217;t buy this line. Modiji is our star and it8217;s showing. I have been monitoring each of the 16 meetings in Saurashtra, and they have seen record-breaking attendance,8221; he said.

According to him, over 5 lakh people attended Modi8217;s Sunday rally at Surat. 8220;We would cross the existing 39 seats in Saurashtra region alone, if the attendance is any barometer,8221; he adds.

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Others were not so generous. Many in Surat say the number at the meet was not more than 50,000, even though hundreds of vehicles were engaged to get people to the rally at Surat from the neighbouring districts of Navsari and Bharuch.

State party head Purushottam Rupala was more forthright on the subject but put it all to a thought-out strategy. 8220;Our programmes should not be compared with that of Sonia Gandhi8217;s. While the Congress is going regionwise, gathering people from more than one district at a time, our leaders are covering each seat. Seen in this light we are doing well, though of course our performance can improve.8221;

At Ahwa, Modi spoke of Jyotigram, the rural electrification scheme8212;ironically his public speaking system was run on a generator. He lashed out at Sonia Gandhi, calling her Saturday speech a 8220;bunch of lies8221;, meant to misguide his 8220;friend tribals.8221;

And if he was a little disappointed with the crowd8217;s response to his chant of Ram and Shabari, he made sure he didn8217;t show it.