We accept the verdict: Venkaiah Naidu

MANDATE 2004

BJP president M. Venkaiah Naidu was not his usual gregarious self on May 13 as the ruling NDA allies took a tumble at the hustings. He found some time to answer some questions though:

What is the reason, prima facie, that you attribute to your party losing the General Elections 2004?

We are yet to sit together and analyse the reasons for the defeat. What we know is that the people have not given us the mandate and have chose to give it to the Congress and its allies. We humbly accept their verdict.

For the rest, the BJP parliamentary party will examine and analyse when they meet on Friday.

We are not only ones who turned out to be wrong, the country's media also consistently came up with wrong projections, in their opinion and exit polls.

Will Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee remain the leader of the NDA and also the leader of the opposition?

This is not a question that is to be answered today. He is still the leader of the NDA and shall reamin so. His post in the parliamentary party is something we haven't even given a thought to.

Will there be a change in the party posts at least?

I am sure the media will come out with some speculative stories on this. You want to speculate then go ahead, as of now, the party is still trying to absorb the mandate.

What is the future of the NDA going to be as they seem to have failed as an electoral alliance at the first test?

The NDA is here to stay, as is the co-alition politics which was triggered by us. As of now there are no plans on changing anything.

The NDA partners will be meeting on Saturday, where they will take whatever decisions that they have to take.