Date:16/02/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/02/16/stories/2006021612320400.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

BJP's agenda for governance on the anvil

Alladi Jayasri

Coalition's plans to be unveiled before Governor's address to legislature

An eight-member panel is preparing the agenda

It will spell out social justice programmes

BANGALORE: The eight-member core committee of the State unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party, headed by V.S. Acharya, is giving shape to the "Agenda for governance", the document articulating the party's commitment to deliver on the promise of "social justice for the underprivileged and equitable development".

Party sources told The Hindu that the "Common agenda for governance" of the BJP-Janata Dal (Secular) coalition for the next 40 months will be unveiled ahead of the Governor's address to the joint session of the legislature.

The BJP, which will take its recipe for "good governance" to a meeting with the Janata Dal (S) to draft the common agenda, expects to give the final shape to its own agenda on Thursday, when the party's top leadership will review the draft drawn up by the core committee, sources said.

The BJP's priorities as a ruling party are being as keenly awaited as its Ministry-making exercise, and there is much curiosity about who comprise its think-tank on issues such as urban planning and infrastructure, and how different the approach of the "party with a difference" will be with regard to cultural, social and educational issues.

The presence of persons such as former Chief Secretary A. Ravindra, with expertise and experience in urban planning, in the party, and several former bureaucrats aligning themselves with it in the run-up to the 2004 elections seem to indicate that its greatest appeal is to the upper middle class and the elite, in Bangalore.

The party's long stint as the Opposition party is an asset, party leaders insist, and straddling both rural and urban aspects of governance should not be too difficult for "conscientious and disciplined" legislators trained in the traditions of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a veteran BJP leader said.

Deputy Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa has repeatedly said the BJP's first priority will be farmers and rural areas, where the socially and economically underprivileged have been chronic sufferers of the debilitating effects of lack of access to education and livelihood.

Sources said what drives the BJP most is the fact that there is only 40 months in which to prove it is a "party with a difference".

The past 20 months are regarded as a time when governance ground to a halt. "Expectations have sunk so low that it takes very little for us to look good,," a senior party leader said.