The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) tried to put up a show of togetherness at a massive rally in Bhopal, where Narendra Modi was the star. The rally was the first to have party patriarch L K Advani share the dais with Modi, who seemed to do all the right things by referring to Advani as the BJP’s guiding light and publicly touching his feet (although almost as an afterthought, after seeing Shivraj Singh Chouhan doing so). Elsewhere, squabbles within the BJP broke out over the question of its allies, suggesting the road to forming a government at the Centre was not easy.
In his speech, Advani referred to the power sector reforms pioneered by Modi that ensured 24-hour power supply, a model then followed by other BJP-ruled states including Madhya Pradesh. He said on all indices of governance, the BJP-ruled states had stolen a march over others. Recalling the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee formed the government at the Centre in coalition with many parties and that BJP came to power in many states under a similar arrangement, Advani said no other party can challenge BJP’s performance and track record.
“In the coming assembly and Lok Sabha elections, we will win on the basis of the record of the BJP and NDA. No other party can compare with BJP or NDA... It is our achievements, which will fetch a victory for us. We will not win elections merely on the basis of speeches but on the basis of the performance, leadership, achievements and the work done by us,” he said.
Party president Rajnath Singh said BJP workers and sympathisers had been booked under the specious charge of Hindu terrorism and harassed. Singh, who spoke after Advani, said: “Modi can become the Prime Minister of the country and Chouhan the chief minister in Madhya Pradesh only if the worker of the BJP at booth level works hard.”
Party leader Uma Bharti also sought the blessings of the people to make Chouhan the chief minister and Modi “the destiny-maker of the nation”.
The rally was largely a congregation of party workers, called Karyakarta Mahakumbh.
Modi also shared his concerns about the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). He said the Centre would not hesitate to use the CBI against political rivals, so the BJP needed to be conscious of this. Modi’s remarks were in the context of the case against former Gujarat home minister Amit Shah for his role in fake encounters after former DIG D G Vanzara turned against Modi and Shah.
Asking workers to make India ‘Congress-free’, Modi said: “I throw a challenge to Congress leaders: that they may choose any tactics in the coming polls but India’s voters will pay them back for each of their misdeeds during the last 10 years.”
In his typical style, he said during the United Progressive Alliance’s regime, there was a scam for every letter of the alphabet. If one were to count the money that the UPA-led government had siphoned off from the average Indian, the counting would start from Bhopal and end at Jan Path in Delhi (residence of Congress president Sonia Gandhi), he added.
“Mahatma Gandhi wanted to dismantle Congress after Independence, but the party did not honour his wish. We will have to work to make his dream come true and rid the country of the Congress party”, he said amid wild applause.
While ‘togetherness’ was the theme of the Bhopal rally, in Andhra Pradesh, the party unit sounded the bugle of rebellion when it rejected the overtures being made to Telugu Desam Party leader Chandrababu Naidu.
BJP’s Andhra unit president Kishan Reddy said the TDP was a ‘sinking ship’ and the BJP would make sure there would be no alliance with it. “If necessary, I will go to Delhi and explain why the alliance will hurt the BJP,” Reddy said in Hyderabad.
Modi said: “Congress harps on inclusive growth but one must know that the term had come out of BJP-ruled states like Madhya Pradesh where leaders like Chouhan have done tremendous work for the poorest of the poor. Those state governments that are working in the interest of the poor in country either belong to BJP or are part of the NDA. It doesn't suit them (UPA) to talk about inclusive growth.”
But while togetherness was the theme of this rally, in Andhra Pradesh
the BJP unit sounded the bugle of rebellion when it rejected the
overtures being made to Telugu Desam Party leader Chandrababu Naidu.
BJP AP unit President Kishan Reddy said the TDP was a sinking ship and
the BJP would make sure there would be no alliance with it. “If
necessary, I will go to delhi and explain why the alliance will hurt the
BJP” reddy said in Hyderabad, putting the TDP leaders’ back up
immediately.