The Hindu : Despite defeat, BJP has not lost hope in U.P.

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 25, 2002

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National

Despite defeat, BJP has not lost hope in U.P.
By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, FEB. 24. The Bharatiya Janata Party leadership was today counting its electoral losses and getting ready to do some stocktaking at the parliamentary board meeting scheduled for tomorrow evening. Party leaders also gathered informally at the residence of the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, this evening, but that was more like a condolence meeting.

The comment by the party president, Jana Krishnamurthi, said it all: ``We respect the people's verdict.'' Tomorrow the BJP leaders will again meet at Mr. Vajpayee's residence where they may be joined by some of the State leaders. A re-scheduled meeting of National Democratic Alliance leaders will also take place at Mr. Vajpayee's residence late tomorrow evening to discuss the poll outcome and prepare for the stormy budget session ahead.

In Uttar Pradesh, where the emergence of the Samajwadi Party as the front-runner seemed certain, the BJP's public stance was that it will not try to form a hotch-potch government as that would erode whatever was left of the party's base by the time Lok Sabha elections are held two years from now.

The view gaining ground is that the party should sit in the Opposition. The wider than expected gap between the Samajwadi Party's numbers and those of the BJP alliance has led the party to reconcile to a ``first invitation'' from the Governor to the SP leader, Mulayam Singh Yadav. But the BJP is banking on the SP being unable to form a government, even with the support of the Congress.

Senior party leaders here are convinced that the State may be heading for President's rule. But that does not at all rule out the possibility of the party trying to form a government with the Bahujan Samaj Party at a later date, after the SP is unable to convert its ``first chance'' into a government.

Senior leaders in the party and the Government have indicated that the BJP was not about to jump to support a BSP Government of Ms. Mayawati. ``If she is willing to do business she should contact us and come up with a formula, but as of now our view is that the Chief Minister, Rajnath Singh, should either get the Chief Minister's position or that of the Leader of the Opposition.''

By late afternoon it had become clear that the BJP was faced with a debacle everywhere. Even in Gujarat, virtually its only surviving major State Government, the party won only the seat contested by the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, but lost the other two byelections to the Congress.

The victory of the Congress in Punjab has come as no surprise to the BJP, but what has hurt it is that despite a high profile campaign by the Prime Minister and the Union Home Minister it was able to win only three Assembly segments against the 22 contested and 17 seats held in the last Assembly.

In Uttaranchal its last minute gamble of changing its Chief Minister has not helped, although it may have cut down the margin of the Congress victory. The one-year BJP rule has only helped the Congress to emerge as a major force.

The trends from Manipur also indicate that the party has been cut to size where not so long ago it had destabilised a government headed by its partner, the Samata Party, and had even asserted that it would try and form a government with the help of defections. The Home Ministry's `Naga ceasefire accord' had finished whatever political ground the party may have covered.

As for Uttar Pradesh, despite nearly a dozen allies, it was fighting with the BSP for the second place - the party's own strength could end up just about a few seats more or less than the BSP's tally.

Party leaders are now admitting that it was a big mistake not to have replaced Ram Prakash Gupta with Rajnath Singh as Chief Minister much earlier. Party leaders are crediting Mr. Singh with preventing a humiliating rout with less than 50 seats.

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