BJP infighting forces PM to camp in UP

The Times of India News Service

NEW DELHI: The infighting in the BJP's Uttar Pradesh unit
has compelled Prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to
camp in the state till Friday when campaigning for the last
phase of polling will end. Mr Vajpayee has already spent
six days in the state during the current campaign.

As part of its damage control exercise, the party leadership has succeeded
in ensuring the presence of chief minister Kalyan Singh at a rally which Mr
Vajpayee and Union home minister L K Advani will address at Lucknow on
Thursday.

The chief minister has not attended the party's rallies in the past few days.
While the party officially attributed his absence to health reasons, sources
said he had been directed by the top leadership to keep away from
campaigning.

The party attaches great significance to the last phase of polling in UP on
October 3 covering 31 seats, in which the fate of several stalwarts, including
Mr Vajpayee, will be decided. The party is worried as intelligence reports
received by it do not hold out encouraging prospects for its candidates in 54
constituencies in which polling has already been held. Those whose fate is
already sealed in ballot boxes include Union ministers Murli Manohar Joshi,
Som Pal, Santosh Gangwar and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

According to party sources, during the next two days Mr Vajpayee will
address half a dozen meetings in key constituencies which include Amethi
and Rae Bareilly from where former Union ministers Sanjay Singh and Arun
Nehru are contesting against Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Satish
Sharma, respectively.

During his stay, the Prime Minister, sources said, will try to meet pro and
anti-Kalyan Singh groups to sort out their differences which are reported to
have sharpened following a ``tiff'' between former Union minister Madan Lal
Khurana and Kalyan Singh at a dinner hosted by governor Suraj Bhan at Raj
Bhavan in Lucknow on September 25.

It is said Mr Kalyan Singh left the dinner, attended by the Prime Minister and
several party leaders, in a huff. Prior to this, on September 20, the Prime
Minister had summoned Mr Kalyan Singh to Delhi and instructed him to take
``everyone along with him''.

Meanwhile, when asked at the party briefing here on Wednesday what
``damage control steps'' the party was taking in UP, party vice-president K L
Sharma denied there were any differences in the state unit. He did not agree
that the BJP would perform badly in the election. Rather, he asserted that it
would bag more seats than it had last year.

Asked about the chief minister's statement on building of the Ram temple, Mr
Sharma clarified that the BJP stood by the manifesto of the National
Democratic Alliance (NDA). ``If Mr Kalyan Singh has expressed his
individual opinion, it is for him to explain,'' he said.

Times of India News Service adds: The BJP's infighting, so far
confined to an exchange of barbs between the Kalyan Singh camp and his
adversaries within the party, is now out in the open. In Aligarh where
polling is already over, party candidate Sheila Gautam has openly charged
the chief minister with attempts to sabotage her chances. She has even told
the election commission that she fears the counting of votes may be
manipulated to defeat her.

She told Times of India that Mr Singh had made no secret of his
displeasure at her candidature. Worse, she said, his ``emissaries'' were in
touch with district officials. She said she had also written to Mr L K
Advani saying that the official machinery could be misued to rig the polls.

Ms Gautam has hired a security firm to maintain round-the-clock vigil of
ballot boxes kept at the ITI complex in Aligarh.