Given clear indications by the RSS and the BJP to give up hopes of leading the party in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, a fuming L.K. Advani Thursday targeted his own outfit, saying people were “disappointed” with the BJP. Mr Advani called for “introspection”, saying the “mood in the party is not upbeat”.
Mr Advani also boycotted a meeting Tuesday evening at party president Nitin Gadkari’s residence to discuss the impact of the day’s “Bharat bandh”. Those present at Mr Gadkari’s house included Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Ram Lal, Aarti Mehra and Dharmendra Pradhan.
Earlier Tuesday, as Mr Gadkari prepared to speak about the bandh’s “success”, Mr Advani ruined the gameplan, hitting out at the party for failing in its campaign against corruption in his blog “BJP a hub of hope”. The Sangh has reportedly hinted that both Mr Advani and Ms Swaraj should “not” lead the party in 2014.
For the Sangh, the choice appears to be between Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi. The message from the RSS leadership is: “If the BJP manages a majority on its own, it should be Modi, and if the party has to form a coalition government it should be Jaitley.”
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New telecom policy: no more roaming
Age Correspondent
New Delhi, May 31
In an attempt to further improve tele-density in the country and bring transparency to the scam-hit sector, the government on Thursday approved the new National Telecom Policy-2012. The new policy, once put into effect, will facilitate abolition of roaming charges and flexible Internet telephony rules.
Informing that the NTP-2012 was cleared at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, minister for communications and IT Kapil Sibal said the new policy would replace rules more than a decade old.
“The target is one-nation full mobile number portability and working towards one-nation free roaming,” Mr Sibal said.