Bharatiya Janata Party central leaders — national president Rajnath Singh and leaders of the Opposition in Parliament Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley — could not make it to the Party’s Vijay Sankalpa Samavesha held in Bangalore Palace Grounds on Monday as the special aircraft in which they were travelling developed technical snag forcing them to return to Delhi.
Addressing the convention later, BJP national general secretary Ananth Kumar explained that the auto-pilot system of the aircraft had failed sometime after it took off from Delhi. Following this, the aircraft was redirected to Delhi where it was emergency-landed.
Mr. Singh addressed them from Delhi through videoconference. His speech was telecast on a giant screen that had been put up as a backdrop for the stage. But there were technical glitches as the transmission got struck several times.
Modi is the brightest
For the first time, the Karnataka unit of the BJP included Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s picture among its central leaders’ photos behind the stage.
A total of seven central leaders’ pictures were displayed. Though Mr. Modi’s picture was used in the sixth place, it had been made to look brighter than others’ pictures perhaps as an indication of his new political status.
Shettar replaces Yeddyurappa
The backdrop of the stage for the rally had huge pictures depicting various flagship programmes of the BJP government.
Prominent among them were schemes like Bhagyalakshmi, Bicycle for high school children and 108-Ambulance service which were launched when B.S. Yeddyurappa was Chief Minister.
It may be noted that when Mr. Yeddyurappa was Chief Minister, the party used to put-up his picture as an inset in the hoardings on these flagship schemes.
In the changed political circumstances, the BJP on Monday used Mr. Shettar’s pictures exactly in the same places where Mr. Yeddyurappa’s pictures were being displayed in the hoardings on these schemes.
Homage
The BJP began its central rally by paying homage to the three inmates of Ganeshwar Avadhoot Maharaj Math in Chowli village in Bidar taluk who committed suicide by immolating themselves inside the math on Monday morning. A minute’s silence was observed to pay homage to them.
