BJP cancels NDA rallies

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, APRIL 5. The BJP has cancelled all the National Democratic Alliance rallies planned to counter the adverse fallout of the Tehelka episode. The strategy is to be redrawn after yet another meeting of the NDA leaders which is likely to take place on April 8.

Announcing this, the BJP spokesperson, Mr. Vijay Kumar Malhotra, claimed the rallies were being dropped as they had been planned as a counter to the Congress(I) plan to hold street demonstrations and public meetings on the Tehelka issue. But since the Congress(I) challenge had ``disappeared,'' the NDA felt there was no need to run the counter-campaign.

``Mrs. Sonia Gandhi had announced war, we had taken up the challenge and the rallies were planned as a strategy to counter this war, but now we see no sign of the Congress(I) challenge, therefore, it was felt that there was no need for these rallies.''

However, it is known that many of the alliance partners were not too enthusiastic about the rallies - in Hyderabad the Telugu Desam Party kept away from the rally addressed by the Union Home Minister, Mr. L.K. Advani, and in Bangalore today the Janata Dal(U) did not participate in the meeting addressed by the Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee. In Bhubaneshwar, no meeting could be fixed because of the indifference of the Biju Janata Dal which is busy with its internal problems, and the Mumbai rally which was announced for later this week has been cancelled after reports suggested that the Shiv Sena was reluctant in associating itself with it.

Another ``reason'' being given for the sudden cancellation is that many senior political leaders, including those in Government, felt it was unwise for the Prime Minister to go around the country with the former Defence Minister, Mr. George Fernandes, giving him a ``Mr. Clean'' certificate when the Venkataswami judicial inquiry has begun its work.

Yet another factor was that instead of countering the Tehelka aftermath, the rallies in fact focussed attention on the episode the BJP would like the people to forget.

Apparently, the rally in Lucknow scheduled for April 15, which was to be addressed by the Prime Minister, has not been cancelled - Lucknow is Mr. Vajpayee's constituency, and cancelling it would have sent the wrong political message. Instead, the large public meeting will be ``converted'' into a ``kisan rally.'' Mr. Mohan Prakash, JD(U) spokesperson, admitted here that his party's Karnataka unit was ``not comfortable with the BJP,'' and ``therefore it stayed away from the Bangalore rally.'' The local unit was also hurt that it was not taken into confidence by the BJP when the rally was being planned.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Front Page
Previous : Vajpayee ridicules Cong. challenge
Next     : Bank chief surrenders