By IANS,
Lucknow : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley Saturday admitted that the party’s “organisational strength had weakened” and said this is the best time to strengthen the party’s base.
“The time is ripe. For the next two-three years we don’t have any elections. We can work hard to utilise the time so that our party can emerge as an alternative not only for the state (Bahujan Samaj Party) government, but also for the central government,” said Jaitley at the two-day state BJP working committee meeting that commenced here Saturday.
“By remaining active and fighting against corruption and criminalisation in politics we can expand our base. We need to come forward with issues governing the masses and act accordingly. We should plan our actions that would decide the pace and the direction of our movement.”
The BJP leader appealed the party workers to carry out “agitational politics” and “ideological war” to strengthen the party.
“We need to hit roads to encourage natural leadership.”
Referring to the party’s unsatisfactory performance in the Lok Sabha elections, Jaitley said: “Whenever the results are not favourable for a party then, there is an unnecessary debate on whether the particular party should leave its ideology.
“It should be very clear that no party changes its ideology in the wake of the election results.”
Jaitley attacked the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for its “wrong policies” related to economy and security of the country.
“The turn of events that has taken place in our country in the last two-three weeks reflect that our country’s foreign policy is being governed by some one other than the government,” said Jaitley, referring to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s joint statement with Pakistani premier Yousaf Raza Gilani and the visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.