BJP focus on LS elections

The BJP8217;s crucial 8220;core group on elections8221;, which met here on Wednesday, decided to announce its second list of Lok Sabha candidates, from Uttar Pradesh, early next month.

8220;We have invited election committees form Jharkhand, Assam, Orissa and Maharashtra to Delhi on September 4-6 for talks,8221; said BJP president Rajnath Singh. The party8217;s central election committee had been meeting state election committees to discuss possible LS candidates, until the process was disrupted by the cash-for-votes scam.

The six-member 8220;core group on elections8221;, headed by M Venkaiah Naidu, has Jaitley, Murli Manohar Joshi, Jaswant Singh, Ananth Kumar and Sushma Swaraj as its other members. The panel had invited top leaders Advani, Rajnath and Ram Lal for Wednesday8217;s meeting.

While the party chose to go public with the decisions on the candidate selection process and Advani8217;s Sankalp Yatra, it kept mum on Jaitley8217;s responsibility. 8220;He had been coordinating with the party spokespersons anyway; there was no reason, therefore, to make an announcement to that effect,8221; said a leader. The real reason, however, lay in the intense rivalry in the top echelons of the party.

The Orissa situation also figured in Wednesday8217;s meeting. 8220;I am sending a fact-finding team under general secretary Vinay Katiyar to Orissa to find out the ground situation there,8221; said Rajnath.