The Hindu : National : BJP dissidents float a new party in Gujarat

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National

BJP dissidents float a new party in Gujarat

Special Correspondent

A number of disgruntled leaders attended the launch

AHMEDABAD: The Bharatiya Janata Party dissidents in Gujarat launched the Rashtriya Swabhiman Manch on Tuesday in Somnath in Junagadh district under the chairmanship of the former BJP member of the State Asembly, Sunil Oza, who unsuccessfully contested the last elections as a candidate of Ms. Uma Bharati’s party after the BJP denied him a re-nomination. A number of disgruntled BJP leaders attended the function.

The Manch leaders targeted the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, L. K. Advani, considered to be the political mentor of Chief Minister Narendra Modi. They made a bonfire of the copies of Mr. Advani’s autobiography “My Country, My Life” and claimed that he had deliberately given “selective information” about various sensitive issues. Mr. Oza alleged that if a leader such as Mr. Advani ever became the Prime Minister, the country would be doomed.

The dissident leaders chose Somnath to begin their campaign because Mr. Advani had launched his famous “Ram Rathyatra” in September, 1990, from this temple town. The leaders of the Manch kept it a low key affair and none of the senior dissident leaders attended it. Manch leaders claimed that more and more leaders would start coming out in the open in the coming days as it would provide a platform to all those who were neither acceptable in the BJP, nor could they go to any other party, particularly the Congress, because of the ideological differences.

Besides about a dozen BJP rebels who had launched an anti-Modi campaign ahead of the Assembly elections, many of the 40-odd then sitting BJP members had also turned against the party on being denied re-nomination.

Some of them had contested as nominees of Ms Bharati’s party while several others remained in the fray as independents or worked against the BJP nominees, while seven of the “original dissidents” had joined the Congress and contested as its candidates. But none of the rebels were accepted by the voters.

The former Chief Minister, Suresh Mehta, who resigned from the BJP on the eve of the Assembly elections, may opt for the Manch . He had earlier indicated the possibility of floating a new party instead of joining the Congress.

Two of the BJP Lok Sabha members, Dr Vallabh Kathiriya and Somabhai Patel, were suspended from the party. Mr. Patel later resigned from the party.

The veteran leader and the former Chief Minister, Keshubhai Patel, was finding himself unwanted in “Mr Modi’s BJP” after been denied the party re-nomination for the Rajya Sabha elections, while its five-time winner of the Surat Lok Sabha seat, Kashiram Rana, is doubtful to secure the party ticket again to contest the next Parliamentary elections.

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