“Former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee may be physically absent but his presence is all-pervasive in the BJP campaign in Uttar Pradesh and that is the reason why the party using his photographs in all campaign publicity material,” says BJP MP Lalji Tandon, who is also a close associate of Mr Vajpayee.
Talking to this correspondent on Tuesday, Mr Tandon said that whatever the BJP was today was due to the efforts of Mr Vajpayee who took the party to its political zenith. “Besides, there is a special place for Mr Vajpayee in the hearts of the people of Uttar Pradesh for whom the BJP is Atal and vice-versa,” he said.
Mr Tandon further said that since former BSP minister Babu Singh Kushwaha was opposing the same issue of quota within quota for Muslims which the BJP was also opposing, it was only natural that his campaign on the issue would benefit the party.
“All parties except the BJP are pursuing ‘minoritism’ with a vengeance and this has irked the OBC who share is being cut into. The Congress has promised 9 per cent reservation within reservation and if this happen to the 27 per cent quota, it will actually translate into 33 per cent quota for Muslims from the OBC share,” he explained.
Replying to another question, the BJP MP said that Mr Kushwaha was not the “epitome of corruption” as he was being made out to be.
“He was merely a medium and the real culprits are others — everyone knows this. Our rivals exploited his entry into the BJP and blew things out of proportion,” he said.
Asked about the BJP’s prospects in the ongoing elections, Mr Tandon said that after three phases of polling, the BJP’s prospects would improve drastically because other parties’ popularity graph had started declining.
“The Congress turned quota within quota into a poll issue and then became defensive,” he said.