BJP allies’ meet to chalk out damage control measures

Interestingly, the Lok Shakti has also invited the Telugu Desam Party which is beginning to distance itself from the BJP and Suresh Kalmadi of the Pune Vikas Aghadi.

Two meetings of this group, mostly comprising leaders who are more comfortable with Prime Minister A B Vajpayee than Home Minister L K Advani, have already been held at Nitish Kumar’s residence in the Capital.

The group feels that the series of attacks against minorities at the behest oforganisations like the VHP and the Bajrang Dal and the antics of the Shiv Sena has seriously harmed the image of the BJP-led coalition Government. And for no fault of theirs, the coalition partners have had to face the flak.

Some of these leaders are also thoroughly disappointed with the performance of the Home Ministry under Advani and his stance on the attacks on minorities, and the clean chit to the VHP and the Bajrang Dal.

The idea of a pressure group came from Hegde whose party’s national executive yesterday took a dim view of the coalition’s performance. In a resolution, it said that the “ Lok Shakti is conscious that the people are disheartened at the internal squabbles of the coalition partners and at the enormous time spent on crisis management by the ruling party at the cost of attention to several major issues.”

It went even a step further to observe that the “credibility of the coalition has been damaged by the unhelpful and erratic utterances of some of the organisations considered to befriendly to the BJP. The incidents of violent assault on the minorities specially on the Christian missionaries and the Dalits are matters of national shame. If the image of the BJP has been highly damaged today, the blame must squarely be put on these so-called friendly organisations. In the process great damage has been caused to the basic values of democracy in the governance of the country.”

However, the party is prepared to give the Government more time. “The time has not come (for such a decision). We appeal to the VHP and Bajrang Dal not to take any action which may jeopardise the nation’s interest,” Lok Shaktri spokesman M Raghupathy told reporters today.