BJP hopes to bounce back with LK Advani’s Jan Chetna yatra

BJP is hoping to bounce back to political centre-stage riding on its top leader LK Advani’s forthcoming Jan Chetna yatra

By ET Bureau | Oct 08, 2011, 07.39 AM IST

NEW DELHI: BJP is hoping to bounce back to political centre-stage riding on its top leader LK Advani’s forthcoming Jan Chetna yatra. After charting out the route map for his latest journey, the party has set out its agenda — making the most of the public ‘outrage against corruption’ and governance issues.

Perceiving that the Manmohan Singh government had fallen from grace in the public eye, BJP feels the yatra is a timely opportunity to project itself as a political alternative.

“Political agenda in the country has converged to good governance and clean governance,” Rajya Sabha Opposition leader Arun Jaitley said, while addressing a media workshop on the yatra here on Friday.

He said the yatra will not be just about 2G spectrum allocation scam and cash-for-votes, but will take up issues like black money, electoral reforms, ‘misuse’ of CBI and judicial reforms besides governance issues in states like Jammu and Kashmir.

Though Advani has tried to bring back memories of Jayaprakash Narayan’s anti-Emergency campaign by beginning his yatra from his birthplace on his birth anniversary, Jaitley said this time people had already drawn out the political agenda. “The people are deciding the agenda... They are ahead of us and we are trying to reach them,” he said.

While people thronged to Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption campaign, it had no place for politicians. It is apparently this space that BJP is hoping to seize at a time when the government suffered from an image deficit.

However, the party is worried the spotlight may fall on its leadership issue and cause unease when the aim is to take on the government. Jaitley tried to drive home the point to the cadre and media cell that it should not lose focus from the party’s political agenda.

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