Seer can wait, BJP focuses on inflation

While price rise is on the agenda on Day One, the focus on Day Two will be the slanging match between two Union ministers — Laloo Prasad Yadav and Ram Vilas Paswan, BJP leader V.K. Malhotra said. No plans to press for an adjournment motion on the Shankaracharya issue was announced.

The BJP leader said Shankaracharya issue would be taken up — along with the reinduction of Sibu Soren in the Cabinet — on Wednesday or Thursday. The agenda will be finalised at the Business Advisory Committee meeting tomorrow.

That the ‘‘ill treatment’’ of the Shankaracharya is only one of the 70 odd issues that the BJP plans to raise this session (it has already given notices on 65 of them) reflects a larger dilemma. At one level, the BJP — under attack from VHP and RSS — is keen to revive Hindutva and was therefore quick to seize upon the arrest as an ‘‘assault on Hinduism’’. The theme was repeated today when Sushma Swaraj demanded the Centre take action under Article 256 and 257 and ask the TN government to furnish the alleged video recording, containing the Shankaracharya’s ‘‘confession’’, to the Union Law Minister.

Swaraj, who met the pontiff in jail yesterday, said he had vehemently denied making any such confession and had authorised her to convey his denial to the media. She railed against the TN government and police for making ‘‘utterly false’’ charges. But while Swaraj — and earlier Advani — have tried to make a big noise over the arrest, the BJP’s decision to underplay it in favour of price rise and the Laloo-Paswan spat results from the compulsions of holding together the NDA, sources said.

In Parliament, the BJP is keen to project a united opposition and may fail to do that by focussing too much on the arrest. JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar has publicly decried the BJP’s campaign on the issue.

By raising matters such as price rise, farmers’ suicide and intra-UPA quarrels, the BJP will find it much easier to rally the NDA behind it.