2019 a choice between stability and instability: BJP

On a day BSP and SP announced seat sharing together in Uttar Pradesh, BJP, setting the tone for its 2019 election campaign, on Saturday debunked attempts to cobble up an opposition grand alliance and projected the 2019 Lok Sabha polls a choice between “stability and instability”.

Speaking on the concluding day of BJP’s two-day national council meeting, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari presented the political resolution of the party and slammed the Opposition attempts to forge coalitions saying they have come together due to “fear” of BJP while Arun Jaitley asked for building the narrative of the 2019 campaign of the party on the leadership issue.

BJP chief Amit Shah said that BJP is fighting to get 50 percent votes and its good that opposition parties have come together to make this fight Modi versus all and asked party workers to go to the grassroots to highlight works done by Modi government.

Addressing BJP workers, all of whom were sporting NaMo Modi hat, Jaitley said people will not accept such ‘menacing’ (darawana) gathbandhan, whose experiment has repeatedly failed since the days of coalition government headed by V P Singh as such coalitions are very weak and shake even when one partner withdraws support.

Shah said 'dynasty politics, casteism and appeasement" are the diseases given by Congress to the nation, which have also now spread in other political parties while Rajnath Singh flagged "chaiwala" origin of Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying opposition parties are unable to digest that person of such a humble origin is ruling the county.

He said BJP workers should convince people about the consequences of such a coalition, which Opposition parties think could work to their advantage. He also advised caution to the BJP workers and asked them to think about what would win them elections when they make a comment or a speech.

Jaitley said that Opposition parties are deliberately avoiding to discuss the issue of leadership but it come later as be it Rahul Gandhi, Mayawati or Mamata Banerjee, everybody has this in their heart. He asked none of them have the courage to stand before the leadership of Modi and BJP workers should use this to their advantage.

The party passed its political resolution expressing confidence of coming back to power and declared that 2019 is not the nineties where rag tag coalitions headed by short-lived leaders came to power.

“India of 2019 is not India of the nineties, where the Prime Minister’s tenure used to be from four months to one year,” said Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad referring to the short tenure of Prime Ministers Chandrashekhar H D Devegowda, I K Gujaral, whose governments were backed by Congress from outside.

Prasad in the similar vein debunked Opposition parties coming together against the BJP saying, “the Opposition alliance has no policy, programme or leader” and its only agenda is to somehow stop Modi from coming to power.

“2019 Lok Sabha polls is stability versus instability, it’s a choice between a Majboor Sarkar (helpless government) and a majboot sarkar (strong government). It’s a choice is between a government headed by a strong honest leader versus a nameless leader. The country has to decide,” Prasad said briefing the reporter on the second day of BJP meet.

He also underplayed the impact of SP-BSP alliance on the performance of BJP in UP where the saffron party had in the last polls 72 Lok Sabha seats and NDA 73. “This is not an election of Uttar Pradesh. This is an election for the nation and when people vote, they will see who is the leader (at the national level),” and added: “a democratic choice is not only mathematical statistics but also chemistry and emotion” when told about the voter percentage arithmetic of the alliance.

Presenting the political resolution, Nitin Gadkari targeted Congress over corruption and mocked the coming together of Opposition parties saying in fact “BJP is the kingmaker of these alliances as these parties have come together due to fear of BJP.”

“Parties, which never walked together are now shaking hands because they have realized they on their own cannot defeat Modi,” he said.

Gadkari and Union Ministers Nirmala Sitharaman and UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath sought to contrast ‘strong’ leadership under Modi with ‘faceless’ Opposition alliance and accused Congress of “playing dirty politics” with national security by “seeking Pakistan’s help to remove Modi”.