BJP tries to shore up UP position

Exit poll results for second phase of elections see parties scrambling to fine-tune strategies.

Blinded by panic after the second phase of polling in parts of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, where exit polls showed the National Democratic Alliance was foundering, the Bharatiya Janata Party summoned all the resources at its command and reworked its strategy to include a carpet-bombing campaign by leaders in the state.

Film stars, central party leaders and MPs from other states where elections are over are being pressed into service to salvage the situation.

Officially the party claimed it would bag 83 of the 136 seats that went to the polls on April 26.

The next phase of polling in central Uttar Pradesh is due on May 5 and the BJP has high expectations from a region that yielded just seven seats for it in 1999.

The party was in the second place in 12 constituencies. Party sources said they expected the BJP to increase its tally to 17, representing the biggest chunk that will stand between success and failure in attempts to form a government at the Centre.

In Delhi, the party held a series of meetings presided over by Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani. BJP President Venkiah Naidu, Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha and party spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi undertook a review of the poll performance this far.

In Lucknow, too, BJP General Secretary Pramod Mahajan, chief of the party's Uttar Pradesh unit Kalyan Singh and other leaders held a meeting.

"Sanjay Joshi, general secretary in charge of organisation, will be despatched to Uttar Pradesh to fine-tune our campaign,'' said Naidu.

"The exit polls could influence that part of the electorate that hasn't decided whom to vote for. We don't want them to be unduly influenced,'' said a highly placed source in the BJP arguing that all exit polls be released only after May 10, betraying the party's shakiness.

The projected rout of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has demoralised the BJP the most. The party is already putting the blame, in anticipation of his defeat, on three successive years of drought in the state rather than the Telengana Rajya Samiti (TRS)-Congress tie-up.

At the Lucknow meeting of the party, a decision was taken to inundate central and western Uttar Pradesh with resources--both men and money--for the remaining 48 Lok Sabha seats that will go to the polls in two phases.

While Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will address meetings in Lucknow, Farrukhabad and Lakhimpur today and tomorrow, Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh and Prakash Javadekar are camping in the state to hold election meetings and oversee preparations.

Union ministers Shatrughan Sinha and Vinod Khanna and other stars turned politicians Smriti Irani, Suresh Oberoi, Mukesh Khanna and Nitish Bharadwaj are likely to tour the state.