BJP’s G-7 behind early LS polls

It was the Group of Seven which took the final decision to have early Lok Sabha elections soon after the BJP’s resounding victory in th...

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It was the Group of Seven which took the final decision to have early Lok Sabha elections soon after the BJP’s resounding victory in the recent Assembly polls. The announcement following the party national executive at Hyderabad on January 12 was a mere formality.

The group which decided to advance the polls included PM A.B. Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani, Finance Minister Jaswant Singh and the party’s young Turks — Venkaiah Naidu, Pramod Mahajan, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. Significantly, Murli Manohar Joshi — initially a part of the powerful triumvirate along with Vajpayee and Advani — was not part of the group. Neither was External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha.

What everybody suspected all along was disclosed today by Advani on his way back from Bhopal, where he had gone to lay the foundation stone for AIIMS — Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia Hospital.

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It was the PM, however, who needed some convincing. ‘‘I discussed it with him, and told him some problem or the other will always be there, whenever we do decide to hold the elections. One view was that there was trouble in states like UP and Tamil Nadu. Let them be sorted out. We had to weigh the options — take advantage of the 3-1 Assembly poll results or wait till September,’’ said Advani.

The vote went for early elections. ‘‘In a country like India, anything can happen in eight months. Monsoons will come. There is water-logging, floods. One never knows how the electorate will react. So, by the time we reached the end of the session, it was more or less decided to have early elections,’’ he said.

For that reason, the government decided not to prorogue Parliament, and simply adjourn it sine die. ‘‘This way the session can be called simply by the Parliamentary Affairs Minister. Otherwise, it could have become complicated as the first session of every year has to be opened with Presidential address. In fact, we even considered calling the session in December itself,’’ Advani said. The January-February session will now only be a continuation of the 2003 winter session.

Earlier, addressing a gathering after laying the foundation stone for AIIMS at Bhopal, he said that for the first time in the country, incumbency has not become a liability but the ‘‘biggest asset’’ for the Vajpayee-led government. He again talked of synchronising LS and Assembly polls, saying: ‘‘Simultaneous polls may not be easy, but a serious thought should be given.’’