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Sharat Pradhan in Kanpur
If the response at Bharatiya Janata Party president Venkaiah Naidu's rally in Kanpur on Thursday is any indication, then the party is not exactly the darling of the masses.
Naidu is touring Uttar Pradesh as part of his mass mobilisation programme and has so far addressed two rallies at Varanasi and Kanpur.
BJP leaders termed the gathering at Kanpur's famous Phoolbagh ground as 'mammoth', though the venue looked half-empty.
Naidu tried to impress upon the crowd that the BJP is different from other parties and is reaching out to the masses even at a time when no elections are due.
Ironically, instead of attacking the main opposition Samajwadi Party, Naidu chose to target the Congress, which with 26 seats in the 403-member state assembly, is hardly worthy of the honour.
Or, perhaps, he had the national scenario in mind, where the Congress is quite above the Samajwadi Party.
"Congress is a party that has got badly fragmented over the years. Today, it has a limited agenda -- to promote the Gandhi family," Naidu said.
At present, the BJP is the country's 'biggest and most popular party', he told the unresponsive audience.
Speaker after speaker went on to attack the Congress and its president Sonia Gandhi, with her foreign origins being a favoured topic.
The other major point they touched upon was the BJP's alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party and Rashtriya Lok Dal in UP.
Party state unit president Vinay Katiyar, his predecessor Kalraj Misra and UP Minister for Housing and Urban Development Lalji Tandon predicted a long life for the coalition.
Earlier, while addressing a press conference, Naidu admitted that "the Ayodhya temple is still on top of the party's agenda. We have set it aside only because it does not form part of the National Democratic Alliance's agenda."
"We are firmly committed to having the Ram temple built at the birthplace of Lord Ram, but we believe in resolving the issue either through negotiations or by the courts," he added.
Asked to comment on the rumblings within the coalition partners in UP, Naidu said, "This is an experiment. The two parties must consult each other before taking any policy decisions in the larger interests of the coalition."
Naidu proposes to continue his mass mobilisation exercise through such rallies across the length and breadth of the country until March 2003.
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