PM sets the tone

Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee today vowed to return to power, sought a 8216;8216;clear majority8217;8217; from the people and made light ...

Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee today vowed to return to power, sought a 8216;8216;clear majority8217;8217; from the people and made light of the Congress8217; attempts to forge an alliance with other parties. Vajpayee was speaking at the BJP national council meeting at the Ambedkar Stadium here.

Though the meeting had been convened to re-install M. Venkaiah Naidu as the party president, it was strategically synchronised with the dissolution of the Lok Sabha and consequently, the show actually marked the launch of the BJP election campaign.

Party leaders, from Deputy PM L.K.Advani and Naidu to former UP CM Kalyan Singh, sang paeans in praise of the PM. The Vikas Purush-Lauh Purush thesis seemed to have been buried, and Naidu hailed Vajpayee as 8216;8216;the statesman India adores and the world admires8217;8217;. MP Chief Minister Uma Bharati went a step further and described Vajpayee as Banke Behari of Mathura, saying he should contest from Bhopal, for UP already 8216;8216;has Ram in his abode at Ayodhya8217;8217;. She also described Vajpayee as Vishnu, Advani as Brahma, 8216;8216;creator of the present BJP8217;8217;, and Naidu as Mahesh, 8216;8216;destroyer of the Congress in three states8217;8217;.

Vajpayee8217;s half-hour address was replete with facts and figures, and not emotional outpourings. Unsparing in his attack on the Congress, he said, it practised 8216;8216;politics of fraud and deceit8217;8217; by pulling down successive governments at the Centre.

The PM also hit out at the Congress over the dynastic succession by underlining that 8216;8216;leaders in our party are not born 8212; they have to work hard to come up.8217;8217; This was a clear allusion to the Congress8217; move to usher Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi into politics. The Congress, he said, had passed a 8216;8216;legacy of problems8217;8217; and listed J-K and the border problem with China among them. He said, 8216;8216;Who can solve these problems? They, who created them?8217;8217; He hastened to add that he was 8216;8216;trying8217;8217; to resolve both issues. Taking a dig at Congress chief Sonia Gandhi8217;s attempts at forging an alliance, the PM said those who had made light of alliances were themselves running helter skelter in search of friends now, 8216;8216;holding meetings and hosting lunches8217;8217;.