HVK Archives: BJP striving to win people's support in UP
BJP striving to win people's support in UP - Times of India News Service
Arvind Singh Bisht
()
7 June 1996
Title : The BJP is striving to win people's support in UP
Author : Arvind Singh Bisht
Publication : Times of India News Service
Date : June 7, 1996
The BJP which has managed to repeat its 1991 election
performance again this time by securing 52 Lok Sabha
seats in U.P., hopes to increase its support base further
by choosing new issues with wider appeal and focusing
the people's attention on the fall off the Vajpayee
government at the Centre.
While the choice of new Issues will be decided at the
party's national executive meeting scheduled to be held
at Bhopal in M,P. on June 22 and 23, the state leadership
feels the need to keep its options open for electoral
alliance with like-minded party in the forthcoming
assembly elections in U.P..
As former chief minister and national vice-president of
the BJP Kalyan Singh put it, "We are not averse to any
electoral adjustment, though the party is prepared to go
it alone in the assembly elections." However, he refused
to identify the possible ally of the BJP in the near
future.
In an interview to this newspaper, Mr Singh said that the
immediate goal of the party was to consolidate its
support base and concentrate more on those areas from
where the party had stood second and lost by only a
narrow margin. According to him, a random analysis of
the Lok Sabha results revealed that about eight seats
were lost by the party only by a slender margin of 10,000
votes and an equal number of others due to poor
candidature.
He said the ascendance of the BJP to power, though it was
short-lived, had sent a message loud and clear to the
forces willing to destabilise the country and it was
because of this reason that Pakistan had hailed the
formation of the UP government at the Centre. "But the
people are sensible enough to take note of the situation
and all this goes to the advantage of the BJP," he
asserted.
Regarding Muslims, he said, "It would be better if they
behave like human beings rather than a vote bank to be
exploited by their religious leaders or opportunistic
Hindu leaders of any political party." They should look
into themselves to find out why the BJP had risen to
strength despite their opposition and why their
representatives have dwindled in number in the Lok Sabha
from 18 in 1980 to just five in 1996. "For this the BJP
is not responsible, though it always exhorted them to
join the mainstream of the country," he said, adding that
they should not overestimate themselves as "key players"
in the event of an election.
The future political programme of the party thus would be
tailored to the need of the prevailing circumstances and
in a manner in which the party could counter the odds, he
added. As part of its strategy, he said the party,
besides focusing attention on crucial national issues,
would present before the people a comparative account of
five governments which came in quick succession during
the last one decade in the state and hammer out the
achievements of the BJP government, the downfall of which
coincided with the Ayodhya demolition incident on
December 6, 1992.
When asked whether the Ayodhya would be on the BJP's
agenda, he said the issue was alive even today and it
needed to be resolved sooner in the larger interest of
the country.
Expressing satisfaction over the overall performance of
the BJP, Mr Singh said, "I am happyto note that a party
with two MPs in 1984, has increased its strength to 162
in 1996 in the Lok Sabha." This alone proved the party's
popularity graph and it showed that it had potential to
rule the country in the future.
He said the party had registered an upswing of over seven
to eight per cent votes in the state despite the absence
of any wave like that of the "Ram wave" in favour of it.
"Our strategy will be now to increase our vote percentage
from the existing 42 per cent to about 50 per cent and we
hope to achieve it though sustained efforts," he said,
adding that nothing could prevent us from coming to power
in future.
Although the BJP's success this time is largely
attributed to the split of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and
the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) vote banks, Mr Singh,
however, differs in his opinion. He said the party's
prospects would be hardly affected even if the two joined
hands together, though he discounted it as a remote
possibility. "Politics is not a simple mathematics of
two plus two equal to four as it is evident by the fact
that the party had won 14 out of 18 reserved Lok Sabha
seats and stood second in three other seats," he said.
He said the emergence of small groups or regional
parties, which he referred to be as "gutka parties,"
however, was a temporary phenomenon and added that the
situation would be fast reversed. "People by and large
want political stability and from this stem the need for
a party which could fulfill their aspirations," he said,
adding that the issue would figure prominently in the
coming elections.
The role of 'gutka parties' stood exposed after the fall
of the BJP government at the Centre and people had seen
it that how they could gang up to cobble a tenuous
majority to grab the power, he said. Describing the
United Front as a bundle of contradictions, he predicted
the downfall of its government at the Centre.
Back
Top
|
