Khurana's credibility takes a beating

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI, AUG. 28.

The senior BJP leader and former Chief Minister, Mr. Madan Lal Khurana, gained little today but lost a lot including his standing and credibility as the transport strike called by the BJP national vice-president and his supporters failed to have much big impact.

But what Mr. Khurana succeeded in achieving -- if at all, he did -- was disrupting normal life in the Capital including causing inconvenience to school children, harassment to lakhs of commuters and inbound travellers just for the benefit of vested interest of a few handful private transporters.

A lot was at stake for Mr. Khurana and its failure has not helped his cause . Unfortunately, Mr. Khurana today stands isolated in his own party. His much publicised dharna at Rajghat too proved to be a big embarrassment with only a few people turning up.

In fact, many of his own colleagues except Mr. Sahib Singh Verma ditched Mr. Khurana and did not participate to plead his cause. Surprisingly, the BJP national vice-president is not even sure against whom he is agitating. He has denied that it was a fight against the Delhi Government or the Centre but has been castigating the Union Petroleum Minister, Mr. Ram Naik.

Mr. Khurana's desperation can be gauged from the fact that in order to garner support, he had promised transporters that he would get an Ordinance promulgated by September 10 in the CNG case. But the Centre has maintained a studied silence and has refused to even confirm or deny the claims of Mr. Khurana. In fact, many in the party feel that Mr. Khurana, who is incharge of three States in his party for organisational issues, has been behaving in a manner not befitting a national leader.

Interestingly, only these the two leaders spearheading the CNG agitation or making noise about it are responsible for the present mess. Both former Chief Ministers Mr. Khurana and Mr. Sahib Singh Verma, were responsible for making ``impractical commitments'' to the Supreme Court on the issue of CNG conversion. It was under their leadership in 1994 and 1996 that affidavits were filed in this regard. ``They are the architects of the present CNG mess and are now calling for a strike and misleading the transporters. Were they sleeping all this time before the entire issue reached a peak? They should launch an agitation against the NDA Government if they are really interested in doing something for the affected people,'' the Delhi Transport Minister, Mr. Parvez Hashmi, remarked.

In fact, it is believed that the strike call for today was without any direction. Although, he did not spell it out, it was clear that Mr. Khurana was trying to corner the Central Government and in the process showing his clout. He has been desperate during the last few months and has been trying to show his presence by some way or the other.

At times he was critical of the Union Urban Development Minister, Mr. Jagmohan, then shifted his focus to the Delhi unit president, Mr. Mange Ram Garg, and suddenly he has now trained his guns on Mr. Naik. ``It is sad and unfortunate that a leader of his stature has lost direction and has been trying to gain political mileage out of sufferings of lakhs of people. If he is so concerned about hardships of people and transporters of Delhi, then why does he not resign his Lok Sabha seat and wage a battle against the injustice,'' said a senior BJP leader.

His own party is not taking Mr. Khurana seriously. The Delhi BJP has totally distanced itself from today's strike and its leaders did not take part in it. ``Majority of his colleagues in the Lok Sabha have also expressed their annoyance over the manner in which Mr. Khurana is functioning. But he fails to realise this and continues with his role as a lone crusader,'' another Delhi BJP leader said.

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