The Hindu : Modi to campaign for BJP in Himachal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 16, 2003

National

National

Modi to campaign for BJP in Himachal

By Manas Dasgupta

GANDHINAGAR FEB. 15. The Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, is all set to take his "Hindutva'' message to Himachal Pradesh to help his party win in the Assembly elections there.

Mr. Modi has been drafted by the Bharatiya Janata Party high command to campaign in the Himalayan State to try and repeat the Gujarat performance there.

He is due to leave for Shimla on Monday on a three-day visit even as campaigning in the State enters its last leg.

The Gujarat BJP president, Rajendrasinh Rana, MP, who accompanied Mr. Modi all through his gaurav rath yatra but was left to play a mere second fiddle, is also keen on campaigning for the BJP in Himachal but is yet to receive any intimation from the high command.

The party sources here, however, are not sure how Mr. Modi will fare in Himachal, in the absence of the "Godhra factor" which created a conducive situation for the Hindutva forces.

To his credit, Mr. Modi could turn the man-made calamity into a case for "Gujarat's pride'' and link it to the "security'' of the people from across the border.

But a section of the party, loyal to Mr. Modi, believes that his efforts would not go in vain in Himachal as a subtle Hindutva wave is blowing all over the country.

Besides, it would not be difficult for him to touch the psyche of the people in the State he served for several years as the party general secretary in-charge. Mr. Modi had also claimed that he had toured the State extensively during his tenure in Shimla and was familiar with every corner.

Godhra accused granted bail

The Gujarat High Court has ordered the release on bail of two of the accused in the Godhra train carnage conspiracy case.

The judge, C. K. Buch, accepted the bail applications of Abdul Razaq Dhantia and Abdul Karim Sheikh on grounds of their "doubtful identity'' and lack of evidence of their having participated in the carnage in which 58 "Ram sevaks'' were torched in a compartment of the Sabarmati Express.

The petitioners said that each one of the hundreds of "witnesses'' questioned by police had said that they had seen them in the crowd during the carnage.

But they did not confirm their participation. They contended that they had been wrongly identified as having been present on the spot during the incident.

The court accepted the plea that they had already been in jail for almost a year and ordered their release on a personal bond of Rs. 25,000 each with the condition that they should not leave Godhra town and should co-operate in the investigations. The Godhra civil court earlier released two accused on similar conditional bails while the Anand Railway Court this week turned down the police demand that the remand of an alleged key suspect, Moulana Hussain Umaraji, be extended.

Police has apparently established "links'' between the Moulana, the moulvi of a local Godhra mosque and the Mumbai underworld, which is believed to had provided "financial support'' to the Moulana to plan the carnage.

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