Naidu hits out at Vajpayee, says party most important

Top leaders have lost touch with workers: BJP chief

As the three-day Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive meeting got under way in Mumbai, party president M Venkaiah Naidu made full use of the opportunity to get back at former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's stand on Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

In an apparent attempt to go back to the good old days of party discipline, Naidu urged a "back to basics" programme for the "over confident party".

Kisi vyakti ki pooja nahin hogi (No individual is to be placed above others), he said. Which means no more Vajpayee photo albums in place of a party manifesto, like the one released before the general elections.

"The virus of individualism has to be got rid of. Each one of us must realise that we are what we are because of the party. It is the party consciousness, party personality, and party identity with which we should align our individual consciousness," he said.

This is being seen as a comment on Vajpayee expressing his personal opinion on the Gujarat riots, at variance with the party line, in public.

Naidu said although the party would take collective responsibility for the defeat, "each individual must examine and take responsibility for their own actions, one what went wrong," he said.

He regretted that top leaders in the party had lost touch with workers, a comment on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ministers, 33 of whom lost elections this time round.

While suitable noises were made on the issue of minorities, Naidu revealed the BJP's back to Hindutva mood when he said the politicisation of the Ahmedabad encounter of alleged terrorists was unfair.

"We will launch a movement to expose competitive pseudo-secularism," he said.

Naidu admitted that over confidence had put paid to the party's hopes in the 2004 elections, but that the time was to plan forward for the upcoming Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana.

"Maybe I will have to add Uttar Pradesh to the list, looking at the way things are going," he said referring to Rahul Gandhi's comments on the Mulayam Singh Yadav government.

He said the BJP would take forward the issue of tainted ministers in the United Progressive Alliance government to the people, to show them the real "criminal" picture of it. "Now is the time to plan, look ahead and yes, learn by our mistakes," he said.

While much of Naidu's speech was on expected lines, the passage bout individual opinion being subsumed by the party line was directly aimed at the former Prime Minister. Vajpayee will only be speaking in the pre-lunch session, on June 24, the last day of the national executive.