BJP hopes to corner Cong over Jain report

NEW DELHI, Dec 5: The Bharatiya Janata Party is likely to make the Jain Commission’s interim report an election issue to corner the Congress. “We will force a debate on the report and see that the Congress does not escape from a discussion,” party general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu said today, describing as “strange and amazing” Congress president Sitaram Kesri’s remark that the Jain report would not be an election issue.

“The Congress brought down the United Front Government because of the report and now it does not want to talk about it,” he added. Naidu said the BJP would appeal to the people to give it a decisive victory in the Lok Sabha elections so that “opportunistic alliances” did not hijack the mandate of the people again.

The idea of launching a pre-poll campaign soon, before the notification of the general elections, is being discussed and will be decided tomorrow when the party’s central office bearers meet here. The meeting will also discuss the formation of various poll-related committees for the manifesto, election management, campaigning, publicity and so on.

The BJP also announced today that its National Executive meet would be held in Bhubaneswar from December 19 to 21.