We’re different, BJP says again

The Prime Minister pointed out that most leaders had been inducted in to the Government at the outset. However, it was later felt that this had created an imbalance between the government and the organisation.

One heard of a Kamaraj-plan, but what unfolded was a Ramraj-plan when some ministers volunteered to work for the party. The vacuum caused by the exit of efficient ministers, who had been shifted to the party, was felt in Parliament. However, if they had stayed with the Government, their absence would have pinched the party. This notwithstanding, a balance has evaded the party.

Referring to economic issues, he said, ‘‘When we can have consensus on matters such as national security, why can’t we have on matters of economy.’’ Frequent elections, in his view, disturbed whatever consensus emerged on economic issues. He said there was a need for political parties to work together, irrespective of a one-party rule or a coalition government.

Vajpayee said that even though chief ministers arrived at a unanimity at conferences here, they reversed their stand on return. He decried the tendency of parties to offer sops such as free power to win elections for it ran counter to national interest.

Deputy PM L.K. Advani caused a flutter at the session by tracing four phases of the BJP’s growth, placing the Vajpayee-phase in the third slot. To make matters worse, he spoke of the Vajpayee-phase in the past tense. As everyone speculated he had left the fourth slot for himself, Advani, realising the explosive potential of his remark, made a special intervention later to underline that it was just the Vajpayee-phase from 1980 onwards.

It was left to Advani to get an endorsement for Naidu’s appointment from the delegates. He proposed a ‘‘Delhi pledge’’ calling for honest introspection and remedial action against negative tendencies to galvanise the party ahead of Assembly polls. Advani said that the task before party workers was that “our’s is not only a party with difference but a Government with a difference”.

“Our’s is not just another party, it’s a party with difference, like the Congress before 1947. Our’s is not a party but a nationalist movement.”

Finance Minister Jaswant Singh got the surprise honour of being seated on the dais with Vajpayee, Advani, HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, even though former party chiefs Kushabhau Thakre and K. Jana Krishnamurthi sat among delegates.

Naidu warned party leaders that if they did not take measures to check, dissidence, factionalism and vices of power, it would have disastrous consequences for the organisation.

The leaders also used the occasion to take swipes at one another. Advani discounted the possibility of any Opposition threat and underlined ‘‘if we get out, it will not be because of bowlers (Opposition) but due to hit-wicket’’.