BJP election campaign in Madhya Pradesh fails to attract crowds

Bhopal, Nov 10 (IANS) The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's much-touted poll campaign launched across Madhya Pradesh with great fanfare Monday appears to have failed to attract the people. Party chief Rajnath Singh opted out of addressing a meeting here this evening as just 250 people turned up to listen to him.

Singh's public meeting was to be held at 8 p.m. at Bhopal's Iqbal Ground, but the BJP president, despite landing on time stayed back at a guest house for over an hour and went back without addressing the gathering.

While the official message said that Singh would not be speaking as he was ill, party sources said that he was annoyed at the thin attendance at the venue and had dropped the idea of addressing it.

At Sagar and Rewa too, the party's poll managers were in for a rude shock seeing the sparse crowds. Central leaders Anant Kumar and Singh had addressed public meetings earlier in the day at the two places. A party source said, 'this is nothing but the fall out of discrimination in distribution of tickets.'

Addressing the public meeting at Rewa, Singh alleged that Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, arrested in connection with the Sep 29 Malegaon blast, was being unduly harassed by being subjected to four narco-analysis tests. 'Has any other suspected militant been subjected to so many tests earlier?' the BJP chief asked.

Singh also charged the Congress with playing vote bank politics and having no concern for the woes of the common man. He also praised the BJP government in the state led by Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Former BJP president M. Venkaiah Naidu also praised Chouhan at a public meeting in Indore, saying: 'He is the chief minister of the common man and the electorate will give him another chance.'

Claiming that the Nov 27 assembly polls were being viewed as semi-finals ahead of the Lok Sabha polls next year, Naidu charged that the UPA government at the centre had meted out step-motherly treatment to the BJP-ruled state, otherwise more development would have taken place.

Another leader Murli Manohar Joshi, who addressed an election meeting at Gwalior, also came down heavily upon the UPA government alleging that its constituents sided with terrorist organisations and therefore the it could not be expected to combat terrorism with an iron hand.

On Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur's arrest, Joshi said, 'There is nothing like a Hindu terrorist.'