Modi, Yeddy, Varun, fail to turn up at rally

GUWAHATI: At an NDA rally here to take on the Manmohan Singh government and to kick off the party’s campaign in poll-bound Assam, two of the BJP’s top leaders, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and his Karnataka counterpart BS Yeddyurappa, besides Pilibhit MP Varun Gandhi, were conspicuous by their absence.

Their decision to stay away from the public meeting, held at the conclusion of the party’s two-day national executive meeting in the city, appears to have been a part of a deliberate strategy. With the Bihar experiment leaving a sweet taste for the NDA, the BJP seems to be apprehensive of further alienating the minority voters. Assam, with over 30 per cent Muslim population, is going to polls later this year. Modi, one of the BJP’s biggest crowd-pullers, and Gandhi, the election in-charge of the party for Assam, had kept away from the pre-poll campaigning in Bihar, where the BJP recorded a strike rate of over 90 per cent in the assembly elections held last year. Yeddyurappa, who faces allegations of favouritism in land allotment in Karnataka, has blunted the BJP’s campaign against corruption under the Manmohan Singh government. His presence on a dais from where the BJP leaders pointed fingers at the UPA would have made it uncomfortable for the party.

The party’s top leadership did make subtle references to the question of probity in the BJP’s backyard at the national executive meeting.

It appealed to everyone to keep in mind ethical values and a clean image at a time when the BJP was taking its battle against corruption to Parliament, the people and the courts.