BJP hijacks Cong strategy, to hold CMs’ meet, talks of aam aadmi

Taking a leaf straight out of the Congress book, the BJP has decided to hold a ‘‘BJP chief ministers’ conclave’’ an...

Taking a leaf straight out of the Congress book, the BJP has decided to hold a ‘‘BJP chief ministers’ conclave’’ and conclaves of ministers of Education, Health, Rural Development, Social Justice etc to exchange ‘‘best practices’’ and ‘‘highlight success stories’’.

The need to make BJP state governments ‘‘more popular’’ was one of the themes discussed at the party’s recently-held Chintan Baithak in Goa and seems directly inspired by the initiative taken by Congress president Sonia Gandhi to hold a series of such chief ministers’ conclaves in the years that the Congress was out of power at the Centre.

The Congress CMs’ conclaves — held in Guwahati, Mount Abu, and Srinagar — were important brainstorming sessions where goals were identified, targets set, and information exchanged.

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The idea of the CMs’ conclave apart, the BJP has also started invoking the ‘‘aam aadmi’’ — a figure made famous by the Congress’ advertising campaign in the run-up to the elections.

BJP spokesman M.A. Naqvi today spoke at length on the plight of the ‘‘aam aadmi’’ following the UPA Government’s first budget. He said the ‘‘aam aadmi’’ was reeling under drought, floods and steep rise in prices. Top BJP leaders would be touring the country for the next two weeks to speak out against the budget’s impact on the ‘‘aam aadmi’’, he announced.

The party’s sudden desire to focus on such issues is partly a result of the threat by the Janata Dal (United) to walk out of the NDA if the BJP returns to hardline Hindutva. News of the JD(U) threat tempered the deliberations at Goa, with the BJP top brass deciding to underplay its ideological distinctiveness — at least for the moment, sources said.

Although the BJP will continue to take up issues dear to its ‘‘ideological constituency’’, such as campaigns against reservation for Muslims, repeal of POTA, and the ‘‘competitive pseudo-secularism of the Congress, Communists, and other UPA partners’’, the leadership wants to leaven it with some economic issues as well.

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Apart from the opposition to the Budget, the party has also set up a three-member committee comprising Arun Jaitley, Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha to study the impact of the latest WTO agreements on India’s agriculture and trade. The BJP hopes to drive a wedge between the Congress and the Left by highlighting the compromises made by the Government in Geneva.

Besides enhancing ties with allies in the NDA, the Chintan Baithak also called for ‘‘parliamentary coordination with all non-UPA parties’’. However, while a section of the BJP’s central leadership has been maintaining contacts with the Samajwadi Party leaders and is keen to expand the ties, the Uttar Pradesh unit of the party insists that the BJP’s revival in the state can come about only by aggressively taking on the SP.

Senior BJP leaders from UP have been summoned to Delhi on August 7 to hold discussions on how to deal with dissidence in the state unit and ways to revive the party’s dismal fortunes in this politically crucial state.