BJP demands crowd-pullers, not crowd for Gujarat polls

The Gujarat poll managers of the BJP have requested the central leadership to curtail the visits of Joel Oram, Satya Narain Jatiya, Bhuvan Chand Khanduri, Sanghpriya Gautam, Anita Arya, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Rajiv Pratap Rudi, Sanjay Paswan, Sumitra Mahajan, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Chaman Lal Gupta as party nominees are showing little enthusiasm to invite them to their constituencies.

Chief Minister Narendra Modi tops the list of those whose public meetings are the most in demand. By the time the electioneering concludes, he would have addressed 85 meetings. He is followed by Keshubhai Patel with 60 public meetings.

Sources said that of the 300 meetings slated to be addressed by central leaders, Advani would have spoken at 20 by the night of December 9. BJP president Venkaiah Naidu is listed as the key speaker at 22 meetings, Murli Manohar Joshi at five, Pramod Mahajan at 11, Sushma Swaraj at 25, Uma Bharati at 24 and Arun Jaitley at 15.

There is a demand for two fire-brand Hindutva protagonists, Vinay Katiyar and Jaibhan Singh Paviyya too. Filmstars Shatrughan Sinha, Vinod Khanna, Hema Malini and Shekhar Suman too are sought after.

Prime Minister Vajpayee will address four rallies — at Vadodara and Jamnagar tomorrow and at Surat and Ahmedabad on December 9. All of them would be held at night.

Sources said there are no takers for the two Muslim leaders, Shahnawaz Hussain and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi as they hold no appeal for the Hindutva-driven supporters of the BJP. And the leaders know that they would not be able to hold the stage in minority-driven areas.