JANUARY 20: Riding a Ram rath, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate and sitting MP from the North Mumbai constituency Ram Naik today launched the third phase of his campaign for the coming Lok Sabha elections.Addressing a press conference, Naik explained that he had decided on the rath yatra as an alternative to the conventional door-to-door campaign because ``it is impossible to carry out a door-to-door campaign in my constituency which is spread over 112 km from Jogeshwari to Palghar. I will be covering two wards everyday for the next 23 days and meet about one lakh people daily''.A jeep, flanked by the portrait of BJP's prime ministerial candidate Atal Behari Vajpayee on one side and Naik's on the other, has been embellished to resemble a rath. While Naik will tour all the main roads in his constituency, his supporters including MLAs, corporators and party workers will stick to the door-to-door campaign and distribute pamphlets among the voters. During the last elections, a similar rath yatra by Naik had run into rough weather when suburban Collector Uttam Khobragade confiscated the rath following complaints from rival candidates. The BJP leader then moved the Bombay High Court and the vehicle was later released.Naik said that this time round he had sought the necessary permission to campaign on the rath. The cost involved in decorating the rath will also be included in his poll expenses, he added.Naik has won five times from the North Mumbai constituency and in the 1991 elections, he also created a record by winning with the highest margin in the State. Thanks to the vigorous campaign launched in his constituency by the Sena-BJP activists, the campaign had entered the third phase in just nine days, Naik said. Rallies of alliance party workers were organised in the first phase, while in the second phase, Naik met commuters aboard local trains to find out for himself the hardships faced by the commuters.
