NEW DELHI, 31 August 2004 — Bhartiya Janata Party leaders spent most of the 101 days in opposition trying to figure out what went wrong at the elections.
Many stalwarts and ministers in the previous Vajpayee Cabinet had lost the parliamentary elections, among them high profile leaders like Yashwant Sinha, Murli Manohar Joshi, Ram Naik, Syed Shahnawaz Hussain and Rajiv Pratap Rudy. As many as 90 out of the 183 sitting BJP MPs had been defeated.
Atal Behari Vajpayee stayed away from the media glare, perhaps still unable to reconcile to the fact that he was no longer prime minister. The media caught up with him at his summer retreat at Manali and when he spoke he created a storm within the Sangh Parivar, blaming the Gujarat riots for the party’s defeat.
“What happened in Gujarat was wrong and it has cost us in the Lok Sabha (lower house) elections,” Vajpayee had said. He also said that he wanted Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to go. But within a week, pressure from his party colleagues and the (Rashtriya Swamsewak Sangh (RSS) made him change his stand on Gujarat for the umpteenth time.
Meantime, the BJP soon realized that if it had to have a future, it needed to come together and find an issue to attack the government. And that came in the form of the so-called “tainted ministers” in the Manmohan Singh Cabinet. For days, Parliament was not allowed to function. The campaign did result in JMM chief Shibu Soren quitting the Cabinet as coal minister.
The BJP also had to pay a price. Firebrand Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti had to resign when a Karnataka court issued an arrest warrant against her. The party is now relearning the art of political campaigning. The man who was in-charge of the India shining campaign, Pramod Mahajan, is now planning a much more down to earth approach.
“We went overboard with our advertising. Now our approach is very different. We are focusing on door-to-door campaigning,” said Mahajan. The Maharashtra elections in October will be a major test for the lessons the BJP has learned sitting in opposition.
Notice to Bihar on MP’s Bail Plea
The Supreme Court yesterday issued notice to the Bihar government on a bail petition filed by Rashtriya Janata Dal MP Mohammed Shahabuddin in an abduction case. The court issued the notice returnable in four weeks on Shahabuddin’s special leave petition against a Patna High Court order rejecting his bail plea in the case pertaining to Communist Party of Indian-Marxist Leninist member Munna Chaudhary’s abduction. The bench, however, declined to stay contempt proceedings initiated against Shahabuddin by the high court on the ground that he was interfering with the administration of justice.
