NEW DELHI, 26 September 2004 — Firebrand Bharatiya Janata Party leader Uma Bharati concluded her “Tiranga Yatra” (tricolor march) yesterday evening near the historic Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, after covering eight states in 15 days during which she kicked up a good deal of political dust.
Bharati launched the march to protest her arrest in a 10-year-old rioting case in Karnataka after resigning as Madhya Pradesh chief minister last month. The case was dropped subsequently.
The 3,000-km march began on Sept.10 as a campaign against the Congress party and to revive the BJP’s flagging political fortunes after its defeat in recent parliamentary elections.
However, rather than achieve the stature of a national figure matching the image of Congress leader Sonia Gandhi, the march led to Bharati’s marginalization in her own political camp. At one point in the march she was compelled to comment that her campaign was being sidelined by the BJP. She also threatened to quit politics.
A squabble erupted in the party when BJP leaders, particularly party President M. Venkiah Naidu, felt being upstaged by Bharati. This led to internal bickering over former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s presence at the concluding ceremony of the march.
Leaders such as Naidu were apparently against his attending the ceremony. However, Bharati’s threat to quit politics turned the tide in her favor with Vajpayee showing up.
Bharati handed over the tricolor, carried by her for 15 days from Hubli in Karnataka, to Vajpayee at a public rally at Jallianwalla Bagh. Addressing the gathering, Bharati thanked the party leadership for having supported the march. “I am just an ex-chief minister but Mr. Vajpayee, former Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and BJP President M. Venkiah Naidu all gave their unstinted support to me during the yatra,” she said.
Bharati’s comments may also be viewed as a satirical reference to her impression of being viewed as a small political entity because of which her march was sidelined by BJP stalwarts.
Vajpayee attended the ceremony especially to pacify her. Earlier, while addressing a function in New Delhi, in a bid to placate her, Vajpayee said: “There is no question of anything being big or small. Every event is organized by the party and is therefore important.”
The implication was that he regarded Bharati’s march as “important,” and she should not entertain the view of it having been “sidelined” by BJP stalwarts.
Vajpayee also said: “What is important is we should not lose sight of the purpose for which functions are organized; it is to strengthen the party and its ideology.”
Among prominent BJP leaders who attended the Jallianwallah Bagh ceremony were Arun Jaitley, Anant Kumar, Shahnawaz Hussein, Navjot Singh Siddhu and Shironmani Akali Dal President Prakash Singh Badal.
