As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is gearing up to hit the trail with the Janaraksha Yatra, a major campaign well ahead of the Lok Sabha election, organisational disunity and dissensions plaguing the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) are annoying the State leadership
The yatra that begins under the tutelage of State president Kummanam Rajasekharan from Payyannur on Tuesday is being projected as a bid to consolidate its position by targeting its bete noire, the CPI(M), and also sustaining its national level campaign that the State has turned out to be a home ground for jihadi terrorist forces.
BJP president Amit Shah and an array of Union Ministers and leaders are expected to join the padyatra at various stages from October 3 to 17. This campaign is expected to give an early bird advantage to the party as well as the NDA.
The BJP State leaders have been singing from the same hymn sheet of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leadership that has alleged governmental lapse in curbing terror elements in the State. The BJP State leaders have also accused the rival fronts of supporting such elements, which they claim are active in the State.
Post peace CPI(M)-BJP State parleys, both sides had called for truce and it continues to remain undisturbed too. The yatra that was planned in the wake of a series of clashes had to be deferred due to various reasons, but the slogans raised at that stage had not been changed either.
The State leadership seeks to dismiss intra-party schism as a thing of the past and swears that all leaders would be part of the yatra.
But the diatribe launched by Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana (SNDP) Yogam general secretary and Bharath Dharma Jana Sena (BDJS) leader Vellappally Natesan against the BJP on the eve of the yatra has virtually come as a dampener and also challenged its claim that the NDA would participate in the yatra as a cohesive whole.
Mr. Shah’s bid to assuage BDJS president Thushar Vellappally by offering to redress his grievances on sharing positions in boards and Corporations under the Central government does not seem to have yielded the desired results. Party leaders seek to downplay Mr. Natesan’s observations. This is being construed as a strategy to find a berth in either fronts.
More importantly, national leaders participating in the yatra would have to address issues such as economic slowdown, oil price hike, and inflation and that would be a tall challenge, sources said.
