The national council of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is meeting here Thursday to discuss India’s security situation and to ratify Nitin Gadkari in the party president’s post.
The three-day national convention of India’s largest opposition party started in this Madhya Pradesh city Wednesday with a meeting of its national executive.

Party Spokesman Prakash Jawadekar told IANS Thursday morning: “The inaugural session of the national council will be addressed by party president Nitin Gadkari at 11 a.m. after his ratification for the top post.”

Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley will present a resolution on national security, one issue where the BJP hopes to corner the ruling United Progressive Alliance — it says the government is too soft on Pakistan over Islamist terrorism.

Jawadekar said Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi — one of the hardliners on the issue — is expected to intervene in the debate over the resolution.

He said the resolution would deal with Islamist terrorism, the Maoist menace, alleged infiltration by China in Arunachal Pradesh, the proposed India-Pakistan talks slated on Feb 25 and Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s concurrence to the amnesty scheme for militants willing to return from Pakistan administered Kashmir.

The resolution is expected to be passed Friday.

The national council will also discuss amendments to the BJP constitution, that have been proposed to make the organisational election process simpler and to increase the number of central office bearers.

Jawadekar said the changes would reduce the workload on party office bearers.

“Only 19 state units of the party have completed their organisational elections,” he pointed out. A simpler process is expected to ensure that more states follow suit.

The West Bengal state BJP has written a letter to chief election commissioner S Y Quraishi, protesting against the appointment of state industries minister Partha Chatterjee as the chairperson of Haldia Petrochemicals and requesting the CEC to disqualify the minister as a member of the assembly.

BJP leader Tapan Sikdar said in Kolkata on Wednesday that the state assembly in a recent legislation had granted exemption to ministers and legislators so that they could become chairpersons and directors of companies.

"This legislation could be seen as a pre-emptive measure against legal challenges to its industry minister Partha Chatterjee's new role" as chairman of HPL, a joint venture between the Chatterjee Group and West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation. Sikdar said he had already met governor M K Narayanan and requested him to withhold assent to the amendment bill of the assembly. If necessary, BJP would also explore legal steps against the amendment. According to Sikdar, only Parliament could bring about such a legislation, a state legislature did not have the power to do so. Such a law, according to him, would against constitutional norms and moral principles. If ministers were given charge of running companies, it would not be possible for these companies to be run independently. They would also become vulnerable to political pressures. Already another minister had been made chairman of a state-run transport corporation.

Sikdar said, the Congress government at the Centre was powerless to stop the West Bengal government from indulging in such an irregularity as it was dependent on support fromTrinamool Congress for survival.

"Of late, the Trinamool government is indulging in irregular acts, without paying heeds to legal, constitutional and moral principles." He mentioned of a few instances in the past where MPs accepting offices of profit had to choose between either of the two.

The Election Commission on Monday confirmed recording 55 per cent polling in the elections held for the three municipalities on Sunday. This thirteen per cent increase in the polling percentage, compared with 42 per cent in 2007, has made the BJP very hopeful of retaining power.

The BJP believes that its traditional supporters - the elite upper class, businessmen and trading community - does not go out and vote en bloc and any increase in the voting percentage is a sure sign of their increased participation in elections and thereby increased support for the BJP.

Before the elections took place, the BJP Leader of Opposition in the Delhi Assembly, V K Malhotra, appealed to the people to come out and vote in large numbers. Speaking to Deccan Herald then, Malhotra had� opined that the Congress support base – Muslims, scheduled castes etc - always voted in large numbers and hence, any increase in voting percentage would be to the BJP’s advantage. As a result of this increase, the BJP has been buoyant since the polling.

Reacting to the increased poll percentage, BJP Delhi Pradesh President Vijender Gupta said on Monday that the increased polling was expected as people were fed-up of the Congress-ruled Delhi government and they had vented their anger by voting for the BJP.
“Issues of corruption, price spiral were bound to take its toll on the Congress. This government has broken the back of Delhiites and they are not going to spare it. The 13 per cent increase in polling per centage is positive vote for BJP,” Gupta told Deccan Herald.

He pointed out the increased polling percentage of 53 per cent in South Delhi and said that the BJP was winning all the three municipalities. Less than 40 per cent polling was recorded here in 2007, with some areas recording as low as 30 per cent.� Interestingly, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief and MP J P Aggarwal considers the increased percentage to as his party’s advantage.

He rubbished the BJP claims and said that the BJP was ruling the MCD in Delhi and if there was any increase in polling, it had to go against the BJP and not against the Congress.
“These elections are for the civic bodies and not the Delhi government. Now, the BJP has been running the MCD for last five years and the people have come out in large numbers to vote, it can only mean one thing and that is anti-BJP voting,” said Agarwal.

BJP on Thursday questioned the move of the UPA government seeking Presidential Reference on whether telecom licences granted between 1994 and 2007 on first-come-first-served basis be treated as illegal, saying 2G decisions taken during NDA rule were as per laid down norms and principles.

"Inspite of 2G decisions being clearly above board, clearly as per norms and principles, it is also being made part of the reference," party spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said here.

The Presidential Reference raises a question whether telecom licences granted in 1994, 2001, 2003 and 2007 on first-come-first-serve basis be treated as illegal in wake of the February 2 judgement.

"...this shows how an indecisive government is seeking the advisory jurisdiction of the Supreme Court even on matters which have to be executive decisions only," she said.

New Delhi, Jan 25 (IANS) Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Rajnath Singh Tuesday termed as 'undemocratic' the government efforts to stop the party's youth wing from hoisting the national flag in Srinagar on Republic Day, saying it was their fundamental right.

'It is the fundamental right given to the people of India to hoist the (national) flag and it is very unfortunate and undemocratic that the central government, along with the state government, is not allowing people to hoist the flag at Lal Chowk (in Srinagar),' Singh told reporters here.

Rajnath Singh has been sitting on a hunger strike at Rajghat here since Monday 8 p.m. to 'protest against the government decision to prevent hoisting of national flag at Lal Chowk in Srinagar'.

Announcing that he will continue his hunger strike till Jan 26, Singh said: 'I have already requested the prime minister and the president to allow people to hoist the tricolour.'

'Stopping countrymen from hoisting the (national) flag will send a wrong message in the country and will be a moral victory for separatist forces in the state,' he said.

BJP leaders had planned to address a public meeting in Jammu Tuesday to coincide with the arrival of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha's Ekta Yatra (unity march) that plans to hoist the national flag in Srinagar's Lal Chowk Jan 26 on the occasion of Republic Day.

BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Ananth Kumar were not allowed to move out of Jammu airport after they landed there by a special flight Monday afternoon. They were later taken into custody by the Jammu and Kashmir police and sent to Punjab.

Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram Monday phoned Jaitley and asked him to return to Delhi, but the BJP leaders did not agree.

The prime minister had issued a statement Saturday saying that Republic Day was not an occasion to score political points, to embarrass state and local administrations or to promote divisive agendas.