Date:20/04/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/04/20/stories/2003042004510800.htm

National

Govindacharya quits BJP

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI APRIL 19. The former BJP general secretary, K.N. Govindacharya, today announced his decision to quit the party altogether — he will not renew his membership which is coming to an end — but he will continue to function as a `swayamsewak' of the RSS.

Talking to reporters here today, Mr. Govindacharya denied that he had made any comments to a news agency on Friday that in his view the BJP had little chance to oust Digvijay Singh from Madhya Pradesh and Sheila Dikshit from Delhi. In a statement today, he described the report as a deliberate mischief.

Earlier in the day, in Jabalpur, the party president, Venkaiah Naidu, dismissed his reported comments as of no consequence since he ``was no longer a political figure.'' It was quite clear that the party had adopted a `could-not-care-less attitude' about Mr. Govindacharya's comments and his work and his decision not to renew the membership of the party seemed to stem from this. A mutual antipathy seemed to have set in.

The man who was once considered the ideologue of the party said he wanted to work outside ``power politics'' on a wider canvas that would give him the freedom to look at larger issues of hunger, unemployment, lack of development, hegemony of the West through the World Trade Organisation, and a host of other issues. He would, however, keep his commitment of submitting his report on the study of the country's economic situation to the BJP president as soon as it was completed.

He would participate in organisational and constructive actions through the Swadeshi Jagran Manch and other organisations, some of them Gandhian.