By IANS
Ahmedabad : Gujarat’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) sounded the election bugle Wednesday with senior leader L.K. Advani and party president Rajnath Singh asking cadres to ensure the party’s victory in the forthcoming assembly polls with 150 of the 182 seats.
Addressing a state-level meet of party workers here, they said it was the cadres’ responsibility that the party got the type of “massive mandate” they were seeking and succeeded in forming the government in the state for the third time running.
The highest tally the party has achieved in the assembly is 127 seats, won in December 2002 under the leadership of Narendra Modi. The assembly polls are due by December.
The two leaders arrived here from Chennai after paying last respects to former party president Jana Krishnamurthy who died Tuesday.
Praising Modi as the most popular chief minister, they said he has made Gujarat not only a frontline state in the country but also as a hot investment destination in the world.
Singh said Modi has made the Gujarat Electricity Board profitable and Gujarat was the only state in India to do so. “I was a chief minister and I know what it is to make an electricity board work profitably,” he said.
The two leaders said Gujarat had made rapid progress during the last six years, and asked the workers to give their wholehearted support to Modi.
The remarks came against the backdrop of the rebellion Modi is facing from a large number BJP legislators and workers who have demanded a change in the leadership.
Responding to the call from Advani and Singh, Modi told the workers: “If you succeed all the credit goes to you. If there is any other result, I shall take all the blame.”
State BJP president Purshottam Rupala advised the party workers not to be taken in by actions of a few against the party. Without naming any rebels he said: “You should all be clear that if they worked they are with us. If they did not they are with the other side.”
Earlier, Advani criticized the Congress, which leads the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in New Delhi, for pursuing “divisive vote bank politics” in the last 50 years.
But now by denying the existence of Hindu god Ram the Manmohan Singh government had “deeply hurt the sentiments and self-respect of people”, said the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha.
Singh added that the affidavit filed by the government in the Ram Sethu- Sethusmudram project – questioning Ram’s existence and since withdrawn – before the Supreme Court was “unacceptable”.
He said under the UPA government inflation had gone up hitting hard a large majority of people, especially those below the poverty line.
He opposed the move to provide job quota to Muslims ostensibly to improve their economic status, as recommended by a central panel. “Any reservation or quotas on the basis of religion is unacceptable to us,” he said.