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SMRUTI KOPPIKAR
MUMBAI, MAY 19: After successfully putting Congress leader Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins on the national agenda for debate, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today sought to downplay its importance in the party's election campaign. Now that the damage is done and the seeds of dissent firmly sown in the Congress, the BJP has cleverly sought to disassociate itself from the responsibility of the debate and is content to slot Gandhi's origins as the fourth and last priority in its campaign.
Pramod Mahajan, party general secretary and Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, said that ``Sonia Gandhi is only fourth priority for us, that too her inexperience is more important than her foreignness''. In Mumbai today to address the concluding part of the two-day state executive, Mahajan said that the issue comes fourth only after those of able leadership, stable coalition and good governance by the Vajpayee government in the last 13 months.
However, he welcomed the latest developments in the Congress andthe fact that Sharad Pawar -- his friend -- P A Sangma and Tariq Anwar had initiated the debate within the party itself. ``But we are very clear that the election to the 13th Lok Sabha is not, repeat not, a referendum on Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins. There are other, more important, issues on which to seek a mandate,'' Mahajan said.
While refusing to acknowledge that the BJP is not considering these developments as beneficial to its election prospects in any manner, Mahajan however conceded that ``they are an additional bonus''. That Congressmen of the stature of Pawar raised the issue, the letter and the resignation drama that followed have ``insured our victory'', he said. Asked what premium that BJP had paid to these Congressmen, Mahajan laughed it off saying premiums can be paid later.
Gandhi's foreign origins was not an issue in the 1998 general election because she was not a contender for the Prime Minister's chair then, pointed out Mahajan. Only when the Vajpyee government was toppled last monthdid she come out openly to claim the chair; so it was logical that the BJP should make her origins an issue since then and not earlier, he explained. ``The issue is not important to the BJP but to the entire nation. Even the Congressmen have referred to national security, economic interests and international image in their letter. My assessment is that it's not only these Congressmen but a huge number who is agitated on this issue but have not spoken openly,'' he said.
Earlier, the state executive concluded its two-day meet with a political resolution that stated that the forthcoming election will be a fight between ``the united BJP-Shiv Sena and a disintegrated opposition'' and will be a cakewalk compared to the 1998 polls which fetched the coalition only ten of the 48 seats.
The Congress itself is deeply divided in Maharashtra, besides its alliances with the Samajwadi Party and Republican Party of India which again is a divided house, are not in the offing. Then there is our track-record of the lastfour years which together should get us more than 33 seats that we got in 1996, said party spokesperson Prakash Javdekar.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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