BJP wants to be the new Congress

The Bharatiya Janata Party is leaving Hindutva behind and seeks to replace the Congress by becoming more like it. The party’s strategy to become the principal pole of Indian politics hinges on it being able to expand its support base, party president Nitin Gadkari said at the BJP National Executive meeting here on Thursday.
The BJP strategy hinges on three imperatives, according to Mr Gadkari: expansion of support base in states where the party is traditionally weak, increase in the party’s overall vote share by at least 10 per cent, and expansion of the National Democratic Alliance.
Mr Gadkari pointed out Goa’s example to stress the need for expanding the BJP support base among religious minorities.
“In Goa, the BJP succeeded in ousting the Congress in the recent Assembly elections as the party has succeeded in winning the support of a large section of the minority…Nine of our MLAs there (out of 21)are from the minority community. Learning from the Goa experience, I would like all our party units to intensify similar efforts to win the trust of our sisters and brothers belonging to minority communities,”
Mr Gadkari, who is known for his proximity to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, said.
He also called upon the party to begin preparations for elections to the next Lok Sabha, “irrespective of whether they are held in 2014 or earlier”. Towards this end, he stressed on unity, discipline and dedication.
Lack of unity among the party’s leaders was evident on day one itself, as Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi refused to attend until party leader Sanjay Joshi, who had been brought to the national executive by Gadkari, resigned. Joshi, who was an RSS pracharak in Gujarat like Modi, eventually had to quit. Mr Modi arrived in Mumbai a few hours later.
Former Karnataka CM B.S. Yeddyurappa, who was also absent from the national executive on day one, told reporters in Bengaluru that Mr Modi ought to be promoted as the party’s prime ministerial candidate.
Former RSS swayamsevak Gadkari, whose three-year term as party president is due to end soon, is likely to get a second term. This will need a change to the party constitution.
The National Executive passed four resolutions on the first day, on agriculture, the economy, drought and Kashmir.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/154824" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: &lt;a&gt; &lt;em&gt; &lt;strong&gt; &lt;cite&gt; &lt;code&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;ol&gt; &lt;li&gt; &lt;dl&gt; &lt;dt&gt; &lt;dd&gt;</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-b2a38186a8063231908a080dc2bf1356" value="form-b2a38186a8063231908a080dc2bf1356" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85738268" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

No Articles Found

I want to begin with a little story that was told to me by a leading executive at Aptech. He was exercising in a gym with a lot of younger people.

Shekhar Kapur’s Bandit Queen didn’t make the cut. Neither did Shaji Karun’s Piravi, which bagged 31 international awards.