Date:24/04/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/04/24/stories/2003042404701100.htm

National

BJP meet seeks to preserve its support base in U.P.

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI APRIL 23. The Bharatiya Janata Party today held yet another meeting on Uttar Pradesh-related developments in a desperate bid to work out a credible strategy to prevent further erosion of its support base in the State, while keeping the coalition with Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party going. But, apart from expressing its sense of hurt and injury, it has not been able to make much headway.

The meeting at the residence of the party president, Venkaiah Naidu, was attended by the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, three general-secretaries of the party, Pramod Mahajan, Rajnath Singh and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, and three U.P. leaders, Vinay Katiyar, Lalji Tandon and Kalraj Mishra.

It was decided that some time within a week, Mr. Advani will call the U.P. Chief Minister, Mayawati, here for a meeting to discuss various problems, including crash of sugarcane prices and sugar mills refusing to pay up dues to farmers and meet their contractual obligations, and power cuts and the general functioning of the State Government.

The issue of the harsh language used by Ms. Mayawati against Mr. Rajnath Singh at a recent press conference in Delhi also came up. All that was generally stated later was that both the BJP and the BSP should refrain from saying anything in public that could strain relations.

Apparently the party has also taken a decision that it will not allow more of its members to join Mayawati's Council of Ministers.

On April 26, Mr. Advani is scheduled to address a university convocation in Kanpur. Later that day the party will organise a meeting with party workers where they hope Mr. Advani will throw some light on how the party can stall its downward graph in the State. On May 18 Mr. Naidu will be in Lucknow, where he will meet with all district presidents of the party and discuss ways of expanding the party's social base, Mr. Naqvi later told reporters.

The harsh fact is that almost the entire State leadership of the BJP and the central leaders are aware that the party is going downhill in Uttar Pradesh, and far from expanding its social base its problem is to keep intact what little political space it has. But it is caught on the horns of a dilemma — taking support back from the Mayawati Government could mean helping to install a government led by the Samajwadi Party's Mulayam Singh Yadav. That risk the party cannot take because of the Babri Masjid demolition case before the Rae Bareilly court in which the top RSS leaders and some Union Ministers, including Mr. Advani, are in the list of accused. While keeping the coalition going is costing the party in terms of a fast shrinking base.

Earlier in the day, the party's general-secretaries met at the party office for several hours to identify issues for the October-November assembly elections. It was made clear at the meeting that there was no question of withdrawing from the coalition Government in U.P.