NDA to review strategy for next session

In the first indication that the next session of Parliament might not see the disruption it has witnessed in the past sessions since the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government came into power, NDA convenor Geroge Fernandes said the BJP and allies would review their strategy in Parliament.

Fernandes made this observation in Bangalore at a press conference in the wake of leader of the opposition LK Advani expressing regret over disruption of parliamentary proceedings.

"I am told that LK Advani made a statement on this. This needs to be reviewed. So it will be reviewed," Fernandes said, when asked if he regretted the stalling of parliamentary proceedings. However, the NDA would continue to "fight" against the "tainted ministers" in the UPA government, Fernandes said.

The NDA appeared to have realised that it had lost a lot of goodwill in the middle classes by its continual disruption of parliamentary proceedings and seemed anxious to change the impression that it was being an irresponsible opposition.

The unilateral passage of the railway budget and the Finance Bill especially gave rise to this impression during the last Parliament session.

Asked about the Uma Bharti-led "tiranga yatra", he said any party pursuing its own programme would not "impinge on the NDA as a platform. NDA is very well united".

On Maharashtra assembly polls next month, he said by backing union petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar on his controversial remarks against Veer Savarkar, the Congress had made the people of that state take a strong position against it and "made the road very clear for the BJP-Shiv Sena combine to come to power".

Fernandes played it safe on the controversy over the census figures on "high rise" in the Muslim population and its subsequent revision. Without either endorsing the position of some in the BJP that it was worrisome and needed to be addressed or that of the Congress that it was a mistake, he said it was a "foolish act of those who did the census."

They did not know how to present the census. They made a mess of it. Some people got into the act without knowing. This is what happens when there is half information or no information".