The Hindu : BJP chief wants early Gujarat polls

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Oct 10, 2002

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National

BJP chief wants early Gujarat polls

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI OCT. 9. The Bharatiya Janata Party has once again begun to show impatience with the Election Commission. Today, the party president, Venkaiah Naidu, urged the Commission to "end the uncertainty" and "announce the election schedule for Gujarat".

When it was pointed out that the Commission had already clarified to the Supreme Court that it intended to hold elections in the State by November-December, Mr. Naidu insisted that "elections are the essence of democracy" and that the "people of Gujarat must be given an opportunity as early as possible" to elect their government.

Mr. Naidu insisted that he was not intimidating the Commission, nor was he trying to pressure it, but he saw no reason for any further postponement of the polls in the State when elections had been successfully held in far worse and more difficult circumstances in Jammu and Kashmir. "The Commission has had enough time for revision of electoral rolls and for necessary preparations."

Back from a state-level party convention in Gandhinagar, Mr. Naidu said the people of Gujarat were now anxious to exercise their franchise and they wanted a Government which could take policy decisions.

He agreed that the Modi Government was continuing in its capacity as "caretaker" (more than six months had now elapsed since the last Assembly session in the State and the BJP had earlier argued passionately that after this period the Government's life would end), and therefore it could not take policy decisions.

There was an "upsurge" in Gujarat in favour of the BJP, he said. The "people want to teach a lesson to pseudo-secularists who have defamed Gujarat,'' he said.

Mr. Naidu alleged that the Congress had become totally devoid of ideas. Lack of issues had prompted it to criticise a simple lunch engagement between the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and the President, Abdul Kalam, whereas Rajiv Gandhi as Prime Minister had also invited the then President, R. Venkataraman, to his residence for dinner.

On Tamil Nadu's ordinance prohibiting fraudulent religious conversions, he said his party welcomed it, it would advise all the States to have similar legislation.

Finally, he did not think that the ordinance was redundant as the ordinary law of the land prohibited conversions through fraud or by inducements.

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