The Rajasthan BJP has decided to corner the ruling Congress government on FDI and hike in power tariff. Leader of the Opposition Vasundhara Raje remains out of the state. Ms Raje skipped the party’s core committee meeting but her camp loyalists were present. Ms Raje last visited Jaipur when UPA presidential nominee P.A. Sangma came for campaigning.
Senior leaders, including state party president Arun Chaturvedi, deputy leader of the Opposition Ghanshyam Tiwari, former home minister Gulab Chand Kataria and party in-charge Kaptan Singh Solanki, assembled on Saturday at the core committee meeting and discussed issues against the government. But Ms Raje was conspicuous by her absence. The party leaders outlined the programme for a state-level campaign against the government.
According to sources, Raje camp follower and former minister Rajendra Rathore was present at the meeting. Ms Raje has been away for quite some time from the party’s core committee meetings.
The party central leadership wanted to resolve all differences and asked all factions to unite for the next Assembly elections, due in 2013.
Senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley was assigned the task of bringing all factions together and he visited here last month. It was Mr Jaitley’s intervention that resulted in organising regular meetings of the core committee. In the absence of Ms Raje, the RSS backed former home minister Kataria and state president Chaturvedi led most of the party’s anti-Congress campaign. It was Mr Kataria’s proposed rath yatra that sparked off the feud between Ms Raje and him. She had stormed out from the May core committee meet and threatened to quit the party.