NEW DELHI, 7 January 2004 — BJP’s ambitious plans to rope in Sharad Pawar’s NCP in the NDA coalition, to cause a setback to an embattled Congress party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, have failed. “I think it is difficult to take the plan to fruition given the problems in seat-sharing,” BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan, who had played a key role in the process, said here yesterday.
The plan came a cropper as Pawar appeared to have disagreed with the share of seats that could have come the NCP way in Maharashtra having 48 Lok Sabha seats, second only to Uttar Pradesh.
However, NCP general secretary P.A. Sangama, who has strong views against aligning with the Congress, yesterday met with Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani. Neither side commented on what transpired at the meeting.
However, BJP succeeded in winning over the RJD(Democratic) MP, Nagmani and admitted him to the party fold. Nagmani, who is minister of state for social justice and empowerment, yesterday merged his ‘Jagdeo Sena’ and ‘Shoshit Kranti Dal’ into the BJP. Nagmani joined the BJP in the presence of party president Venkaiah Naidu and HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, who described it as a move to strengthen the BJP in Bihar and Jharkhand.
Defending the BJP over the issue of communalism, Nagmani said that it was the Congress party, which masterminded communalism in the country. Urging Muslims to support BJP, he said that Congress only misused the minority vote banks, as during the 45 years of Congress rule the employment rates of the Muslims in the government jobs fell to 2-3 percent in comparison to that of 39 percent after independence. The Vajpayee government at the center has done remarkably to improve the community’s condition. On the occasion, the BJP president also called on Muslims and other minority communities to give up their reservation about the party and support it wholeheartedly for the betterment of the country.
On the other side, amid talks of the union government advancing Lok Sabha elections to April-May, Venkaiah Naidu called on NDA convenor George Fernandes to discuss the issue.
