BJP top guns race through constituencies

NEW DELHI, Aug 26: As campaigning for first leg of Lok Sabha polls reaches feverish pitch, the BJP draws comfort from the fact that its t...

NEW DELHI, Aug 26: As campaigning for first leg of Lok Sabha polls reaches feverish pitch, the BJP draws comfort from the fact that its top leaders, including A B Vajpayee, L K Advani and M M Joshi, would have covered almost all the 146 constituencies by September 3.

These constituencies, which are spread across the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and the Union territory of Chandigarh, go to the polls on September 5. After about 10 days of intensive campaigning, the party’s campaign managers claim they have gained a decisive edge over their main rival, the Congress.

The Vajpayee-Advani duo has set a punishing schedule for itself, addressing at least three rallies a day. At many places (for instance, in Ludhiana, Varanasi, Thiruvananthapuram, Bangalore and Hubli), they also addressed meet-the-press programmes arranged by their party units.

At some places, the Prime Minister met editors of local newspapers to get his views across on variousimportant issues. The issues touched by these leaders has more or less remained the same. While India’s success in evicting intruders from Kargil has been given the pride of place in all the meetings, the Congress has drawn severe flak for destabilising governments at the Centre.

In the states of Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab, which send a large number of soldiers to the armed forces, the meetings were preceded by the observance of two minutes’ silence as homage to those killed in Kargil conflict. Again in Rajasthan, the PM briefly touched the issue of reservation for Jats. The leaders have also concentrated on Government’s achievements on various fronts, especially in economic field. They have not failed to mention new heights attained by sensex and the two-decades low inflationary level.

As before, the BJP’s battle for this year’s elections is again being spearheaded by Vajpayee. By September 3, he would have addressed around 55 public meetings. His party colleagues, Union Home Minister L K Advani andUnion Hurman Resource Minister M M Joshi would have covered as many constituencies.

In states where the BJP is contesting the elections in the company of another party, alliance partners have also pitched in. If in Ludhiana, Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his Haryana counterpart Om Prakash Chautala shared the stage with Vajpayee on August 7 to kick off the campaign for this year’s elections, in Chennai, DMK chief M Karunanidhi, MDMK founder Vaiko, PMK president S Ramadoss and TRC chief V Ramamurthy shared the limelight with him on August 21.

Story continues below this ad

A day later, the NDA kicked off its campaign in Karnataka with the joint rally at Bellary, addressed among others by Home Minister L K Advani, Janata Dal (United) leaders Ramakrishna Hegde and J H Patel and former Delhi CM Sushma Swaraj, the BJP candidate from the constituency.