Rajnath's relative, friend in BJP's poll list

B D Narayankar

New Delhi: BJP president Rajnath Singh may have been pressurised by Shatrughan Sinha for contesting Lok Sabha polls from Patna Sahib, but he didn't seem to have found any obstacles when he included his chioce of men in the Lok Sabha poll list.

Singh has included his doctor's and relative's name in the list. Ace shooter Jaspal Rana is the brother-in-law and a close friend of Rajnath's son Pankaj Singh, and Dr Mahesh Sharma is Singh's doctor working for Kailash Hospital in Noida.

Jaspal will be contesting from Tehri in Uttarakhand and Dr Sharma from Gautam Buddh Nagar. Sharma is considered very close to some RSS pracharaks loaned to the BJP in Uttar Pradesh like Rakesh Jain.

Ananth Kumar, Sadanand Gowda and Manoj Sinha are other prominent names included in BJP's list.

Bhumihar leader Manoj Sinha will contest from Ballia. Sinha, who has a mass base in UP, is known to be a powerful orator. Ramakant Yadav, who had threatened to "create a mini-Gujarat in Azamgarh" during a bypoll last April, will re-contest the Azamgarh seat. Lallu Singh will contest from Faizabad.

BJP general secretary Ananth Kumar, meanwhile, will contest Bangalore South, while Karnataka BJP president V Sadanand Gowda will contest the Udupi-Chikmagalur seat.

With Thursday's lists, the BJP has declared candidates for 99 seats for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections so far. The number, however, falls way short of the expected 200 figure that the party had hoped to reach by January-end. States like Bihar and Maharashtra, where the BJP is in alliance with other parties, have posed problems in identification of seats, a reason why the exercise may get further delayed.

The Chief Ministers of various BJP-ruled states met the NDA's prime ministerial candidate, L K Advani, here on Thursday to discuss the agenda for good governance for the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.

It was suggested that Advani conclude his Vijay Sankalp Yatra by mid-March, by when the election schedule would have been made public. Some Chief Ministers, particularly Narendra Modi, will be roped in to campaign outside the state. Modi will also accompany Advani for his Vijaywada rally in the first week of February.

"The Chief Ministers were asked to highlight the achievements of the previous NDA regime and expose the failures of the UPA Government. Terrorism, rising prices, plight of farmers and growing unemployment will be the relevant poll issues. The river-linking project launched by the then prime minister A B Vajpayee will be started again if NDA comes to power. Other achievements of the NDA like increasing road connectivity through the National Highways project and improving tele-density and connectivity will also be publicised," said former BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu after the meeting.

He said that the focus on first-time voters, aged between 18-25 years, would continue. "Our programme to facilitate such voters will be held across the country," said Naidu. He claimed that the NDA had handed over a "resilient economy" to the UPA in 2004 but "now it had reached a stage where even daily commodities were not available at affordable prices".

Summing up the discussion at Advani's residence, Naidu said: "The Congress had said that it was with the common man. But this is hardly the case. While the UPA government played divisive politics, we are committed to good governance, delivery, development and welfare of the people."