The Hindu : Govt. performance the key: PM

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 06, 2003

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Govt. performance the key: PM

By Neena Vyas

INDORE APRIL 5. Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party is in the midst of preparing a massive election campaign full of sound and fury, the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, today warned the party that speeches and manifestoes, however well made, might not be the ideal recipe for electoral success. What counted in the end was the people's perception of Government performance.

In a way, Mr. Vajpayee virtually endorsed what the Union Minister, Shanta Kumar, had said after the BJP's defeat in Himachal Pradesh — that the people were unhappy with the unfulfilled promises made by the Dhumal Government — a comment for which Mr. Kumar received a show cause notice.

Addressing the party's national executive committee meeting here on its concluding day, Mr. Vajpayee said: "manifestoes and election speeches are all right, but finally, it is the people's perception of Government performance that is decisive."

Praising M. Venkaiah Naidu's leadership of the party, Mr. Vajpayee said the Assembly elections in four States later this year were crucial as they would "set the direction" for the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.

The party adopted a hold-all political resolution which made the Congress its main target of attack even as it celebrated the survival in office of the "third longest serving" Prime Minister, Mr. Vajpayee, after Nehru and Indira Gandhi.

It spelt out the Government's "achievements" claiming a breakthrough in controlling and ending terrorism, it presented Mr. Vajpayee as the knight of peace (Lahore bus voyage) and the hero of war (Kargil), it lauded Pokhran II and the infrastructure developed in roads and telecom sectors.

The party attacked the Congress saying it was "ideologically adrift, organisationally enfeebled and uncertain about its present and future leadership".

The Deputy Prime Minister, L. K. Advani, repeated the party's old slogan, "party with a difference" although most leaders have long ago stopped saying that.

He said the BJP was "different" in being able to win regional parties as allies, it had "overcome the temptation of vote-bank politics" and it was "committed to national interests" as against other parties.

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