BJP GenNext jostles for limelight

The BJP’s three day meet here concluded on Sunday with the second generation of BJP leaders jostling among themselves to impress the gathering, while prime ministerial candidate LK Advani carefully distributed responsibilities for the coming Lok Sabha polls among them. Shekhar Iyer reports.

The BJP’s three day meet here concluded on Sunday with the second generation of BJP leaders jostling among themselves to impress the gathering, while prime ministerial candidate LK Advani carefully distributed responsibilities for the coming Lok Sabha polls among them.

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Advani declared that while party president Rajnath Singh and heavyweight Sushma Swaraj would contest the elections — Singh from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh and Swaraj from some yet-to-be-decided seat in Madhya Pradesh — other leaders like Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu would not.

“I have asked Jaitley not to contest, but to ensure our victories across North India,” said Advani. Jaitely will be in charge of UP, Bihar, Delhi and Punjab. Venkaiah Naidu got full charge of the four southern states, while Gujarat CM Narendra Modi was given western India.

The two most eloquent speeches of the day were those by Narendra Modi and Sushma Swaraj. “Why don’t you expose the lies of the Congress, which ridicules the BJP despite its victory in poll after poll?” Modi thundered at them.

In a unique interpretation of Barack Obama’s winning the US presidential contest, he said it was because “Americans were fed up with the stranglehold that a few families like the Bushes and the Clintons had over their politics”.

Swaraj compared the BJP to the reluctant Arjuna before the Mahabharata war, who had to be goaded by Lord Krishna into fighting. “You can overcome all hurdles in your attitude is right,” she said.

Advani also cleared the air about his alleged rivalry with Narendra Modi. “If a junior in the family earns more fame than the head of the family, it is a matter of pride for the family,” he said.