In a counter to Modi,Sushma says Shivraj govt ‘compassionate’

Sushma today demanded to know how Chouhan could have been excluded from this grouping as she cited the social infrastructure in Madhya Pradesh (as against the physical infrastructure in Gujarat) to argue Chouhan’s case.

Making amends,both Gadkari and L K Advani later applauded Chouhan for undertaking social initiatives for the girl child like the Laadli Laxmi Yojna.

“Gujarat good governance ka model ho sakta hai,lekin Madhya Pradesh government samvedanshilta ka model hai (Gujarat may have provided a model of good governance,but Madhya Pradesh has,similarly,provided a compassionate government,” said Sushma. Earlier in the day,Chouhan had cited his state’s statistics to show how the sex ratio had swung in favour of girls in the last five years in the state (there are 1017 girls born for every 1,000 boys while five years ago,the corresponding figure was 920:1000,” said Chouhan.

Both Gadkari and Advani later profusely praised Chouhan for the social initiative. “I had said that we would introduce this initiative at an all India level if voted to power in the elections,” said Advani.

A day after Modi got thunderous applause on the issue of national security — while seconding the resolution on national security and Jammu and Kashmir,moved by Arun Jaitley — Sushma struck a chord with the women members saying how the issue of price rise “affected women the most.”

“Yashwant Sinhaji has already moved a detailed resolution on price rise,and I would take the government to task in Parliament,but there has been a maximum demand from the women members to speak here on the price rise issue,which explains the current mood in the country. We must make our programme to gherao Parliament on April 21 on the issue of price rise a huge success,” she said.

The power-play and the churning in the party had another dimension on display on the concluding day of the BJP’s national council — the omnipresent RSS. In his speech,Advani referred to his RSS roots on many occasions. He recalled that he had done his first year RSS training at Indore (the RSS has a training programme spread over three years),and also said that “all of them belonged to the wider Sangh Parivar.” There was a Golwalkar connection as well.

“On Feb 9,Nitin Gadkari was elected as the party president. That was the birthday of Guru Golwalkar,according to Hindu calendar. And today,is the birthday of Guru Golwalkar according to the English calendar. The recent election of a new party president establishes that the BJP is the party with a difference,and I congratulate Nitin Gadkari,” said Advani. Gadkari,incidentally,draws strength from his proximity to the RSS.