New Delhi

April 20, 2004

BJP CALLS MEETING FOR REALITY

: The Bhartiya Janata Party leadership has convened a crisis
meeting at the PM's House here on Wednesday for the reality check amid increasing fears that its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) may fall short of the majority.

The meeting will also discuss the desperation voiced by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the party finds it difficult to clarify about the remarks he makes creating one new controversy every day. It has been specially called to discuss a new strategy to be adopted for the remaining three rounds of polls in tandem with the RSS, whose leaders will also
attend the meeting.

The BJP leadership is contemplating to adopt the line adopted by the Congress in Uttar Pradesh to concentrate only on the constituencies where the party's chances are better instead of wasting energies on the losing seats. The tour programmes of the top leaders will be revised to leave out the losing seats following Wednesday's meeting.

Besides the Prime Minister, those others putting their heads together for stopping the slide will be Deputy PM Lal Krishna Advani, BJP chief M Venkaiah Naidu, General Secretary Pramod Mahajan, and Union Ministers Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj.

While the BJP leaders meet to finalise a new strategy, the RSS has already directed its units to let the RSS cadres practically take charge of the polling day management to ensure the highest possible turnout of the BJP supporters at the polling booths. The RSS leadership has even directed its
functionaries adopted by the BJP as the observers in the constituencies to let the RSS cadres openly carry out a door-to-door campaign for the BJP candidates if they find gaps in the BJP's own campaign.

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Why Satish Sharma is contesting the polls

Capt Satish Sharma is contesting from Sultanpur telling people that he was contesting only for Priyanka Gandhi to prepare the constituency for her to enter the Lok Sabha whenever she decides. His election agents point out
that Satish Sharma has been keeping warm the seats for the family of his friend late Rajiv Gandhi and the same thing he is doing in Sultanpur. But is Priyanka really going to enter the election race? Satish Sharma says it can happen as early as this year itself or as late as the next round of Parliamenary elections. Till such time, he says he would be only the
"caretaker" of the constituency, as he was first for Amethi and then Rai Bareli for the family.

It was Capt Sharma who nursed Amethi after Rajiv Gandhi's assassination until Sonia Gandhi decided to take the plunge into politics from there. He then moved to Rai Bareli, nursing the constituency, for the Gandhi family, and readily shifted to Sultanpur welcoming Sonia Gandhi to contest from Rai Bareli even as she gave Amethi, nursed by her, her late husband and daughter Priyanka Gandhi, to Rahul to contest.

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Vajpayee versus Jethmalani in Lucknow

Noted lawyer and former Union Law Minister Ram Jethmalani is getting all set to ask ten questions to Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee every day to put him on the defensive. He had done same against former Prime Minister late Rajiv Gandhi by asking ten questions on Bofors kickbacks and
hence the Congress leaders have approached him better to adopt some other tactic instead of 10 questions to PM. The Congress worry is that the BJP will dig out Jethmalani's posers to Rajiv Gandhi to embarass the Congress instead of responding to his questions to PM. The Congress has withdrawn its candidate for Lucknow seat in his favour to take on the PM and hence the Congress leaders hope that he will at least heed to the advice of the party to carry out his campaign in a dignified manner.

Ruse to Divide 'The Family' ?

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mulayam Singh Yadav has shown a special favour to Rahul Gandhi by making it known that his Samajwadi Party is not fielding any candidate against him in Amethi, though the party candidate against his mother Sonia Gandhi in Rae Bareli will not be withdrawn. Expecting earlier that Sonia Gandhi will be contesting from Amethi constituency only that she represented in the dissolved Lok Sabha, the
Samajwadi Party had not declared any candidate for the seat and as such the party could have very well named one since Sonia andhi has moved to Rae Bareli. Mulayam, however, chose to bless Rahul Gandhi by not fielding any SP candidate against him even as his General Secretary Amar Singh
sought to make anti-BJP noise by ruling out any chance of the party supporting the BJP in forming the government after the polls. Expecting a hung Lok Sabha, Mulayam now wants to make his choice clear lest his Muslim vote bank deserts him because of Prime Minister Vajpayee mischievously describing Samajwadi Party as "ideologically" close to the BJP.

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NEW ALLIES WELCOME BUT NDA ITSELF TO GET EASY MAJORITY, SAYS BJP

Claiming that there was no confusion about the NDA getting a "comfortable majority" on its own in the Lok Sabha elections, the BJP on Tuesday the doors were, however, never shut on the new comers in the coalition.

"Even if the NDA forms the government winning the majority, new allies who accept our principles are always welcome to join the alliance," BJP spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said at the press briefing at the party headquarters.

He, however, made it clear that the Samajwadi Party should not be under false illusion that the BJP was hungry for the post-poll alliance with it. He was reacting to SP General Secretary Amar Singh rejecting any truck with the BJP now or in future. Both Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party were the BJP's political opponents in the elections in Uttar
Pradesh, Naqvi pointed out.

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BJP'S EXIT POLL: NDA WINNING OVER 100 SEATS IN FIRST ROUND

The ruling Bhatiya Janata Party is out with its own exit poll
giving its combine of National Democratic Alliance (NDA) more than 100 seats in the first round of polling on Tuesday as against 88 seats won in 1999 elections.

Party spokesman Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the BJP had fielded candidates on 103 of the 140 Lok Sabha seats for which the polls were held on Tuesday as against 101 seats contested in 1999. Remaining 37 seats are contested by
its NDA allies.

Asked why the BJP was happily declaring its "exit poll" while asking the Election Commission to ban the Media from publishing any "exit poll", Naqvi quipped that the BJP was not opposed to it but it had no objection in accepting other parties' demanding by consensus to stop their release
until the last round of polls.

Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi poohpoohed the BJP's tall claim of winning more than 100 seats in the first round, stressing that it was resorting to all sorts of false illusions. The Congress will not resort to such speculation giving figures of victories, Singhvi retorted when asked about the party's expectations in the first round.

The Congress also once again urged the Election Commission to immediately stop the exit polls that the TV networks may start beaming from Tuesday evening since the Commission has taken a stand that it would decide about these polls after three days.

If someone says that the exit polls do not influence the election results, then why not declare the results of every round of polls the same evening or the next day instead of waiting till the end of the last round, Singhvi asked.

He said the Congress was urging the Election Commission to ban the exit polls forthwith "without prejudice to our right to go to court." The Congress would, however, wait to watch what the Commission does by Tuesday evening, he added

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" ATAL SERMONS KEEPING EYES CLOSED TO GUJARAT STRICTURES"

Citing the CBI charge-sheet in the Bilkis case questioning the
very existence of the Gujarat Government, the Congress on Tuesday compared Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee with "Dhratrashtra" in "Mahabharat" epic who was giving sermons to others while keeping own eyes shut with "patti" (band) to the severe strictures against the Narendra Modi's government.

First the strictures of the Supreme Court and now the CBI charge-sheet filed on Monday stating that the situation shows as if the state (government) had seized to exist withcomplete abdication of impartiality of law, Congress spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said at the daily AICC Press
briefing. He pointed out that the charge-sheet has detailed complete failure of the state machinery in Gujarat, citing how the administration was itself involved in hiding physical evidence and bodies of the victims of riots