The Hindu : RS poll blues for BJP

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 07, 2002

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National

RS poll blues for BJP

By Our Special Correspondent

The Samajwadi Party general secretary, Amar Singh, filing his nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections in Lucknow on Wednesday. To his right are the SP chief, Mulayam Singh Yadav, and the Rastriya Kranti Dal president, Kalyan Singh. — Photo: Subir Roy

NEW DELHI NOV. 6. With dissidence in Uttar Pradesh continuing to be problematic for the Bharatiya Janata Party, it has been forced to scale down its ambition of getting three of its nominees elected to the Rajya Sabha in the coming biennial elections. Instead, the party president, Venkaiah Naidu, has formally announced two candidates — Rajnath Singh and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, both general secretaries.

A third candidate would have been the former general secretary, Sunil Shastri, but it seems that the party is not at all confident of getting the "extra'' votes for which it would have had to depend on the Bahujan Samaj Party's spare strength as well as on the Rashtriya Lok Dal of Ajit Singh. It cannot even be sure of all its own MLAs, given the fact that some of the dissidents have openly threatened to have their own nominee.

The party is also worried that if a candidate who is known to be an arms dealer with plenty of resources at his command jumps into the fray, then he may be able to "break away'' many party votes across the political spectrum. Certainly, if candidates with a lot of money power join the battle, the BJP and other parties cannot be confident of how the voting will go.

In fact, the party is planning to give a directive to all its MLAs that signing the proposal form of any candidate other than the official party candidates would be considered an act against the party and would invite disciplinary action.

Some party leaders indicated that Mr. Shastri might now be accommodated against a mid-term vacancy caused by T.N. Chaturvedi's appointment as the Karnataka Governor. The party spokesperson, Arun Jaitley, today said that the nominee for the mid-term vacancy would be decided by Mr. Naidu in a couple of days, possibly by tomorrow.

The problem for the party, however, is: will it be able to make all its MLAs vote for Mr. Shastri? Cross-voting in this mid-term vacancy to be decided by a simple majority vote in the Assembly would again expose it to the charge that its house is not in order, that all its MLAs are not with the Mayawati Government, and that the problem of dissidence has only been pushed out of sight temporarily rather than resolved.

The Congress has already announced its candidate, Akhilesh Das, who would also need support from outside his party. In Lucknow, the Samajwadi Party has announced its four nominees — Amar Singh, sitting MP, Uday Pratap Singh, former MP, Abu Asim Azmi, its Maharashtra unit president, and Shahid Siddiqui, a journalist — and the party's strength should be able to make them win with a little help from smaller groups including that of Kalyan Singh's Rashtriya Kranti Party.

The BSP has announced three candidates — Gandhi Azad, Isham Singh and Bir Singh — and it would need "extra'' votes from friendly parties in the coalition to get the third man elected. The fact that the BJP's house is not in order and some independents have also strayed away could affect the BSP's chances for the third seat.

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