The erstwhile Janata Party constituents have always considered themselves the true political inheritors of Lok Nayak Jayaprakash Narayan (JP), who headed the movement against the Emergency and shaped the struggle against a very dominant Congress in the 1970s.
The BJP, as the erstwhile Jan Sangh, was also part of this coalition against the Congress, and, keeping the Bihar polls in mind, has decided to celebrate JP’s birth anniversary on October 11 in a big way, not to just remember a great icon who had his origins in Bihar, but more pertinently to point out how the Janata Party constituents have frittered away his legacy by forming an alliance with the Congress.
The Janata Dal (United) and the Rashtriya Janata Dal are fighting the Bihar Assembly polls in alliance with the Congress by forming what they call a ‘Mahagathbandhan’ or ‘Grand Alliance.’
Top sources in the BJP have confirmed that October 11 will be marked as ‘Loktantra Bachav Diwas’ or ‘Save Democracy Day’ by the party in State capitals and district headquarters across the country. “The programmes and speeches will highlight JP as the great democrat who fought against the authoritarian rule of the Congress and its worship of the Nehru-Gandhi family at the cost of the country. This is in contrast to the Janata Parivar parties wrongly claiming his political inheritance, whereas it is the BJP which is fighting the Congress everywhere,” said the source. The attempt, according to party sources, will be to push across the “political opportunism” of the ‘Grand Alliance.’ This June marked 40 years of the proclamation of the Emergency by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
