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Gadkari blows election bugle

Party takes up battle to install BJP CM in Dispur
Guwahati, April 5: The BJP today used the protest rally over price rise to launch the party’s campaign for the 2011 Assembly elections in Assam, with its national president Nitin Gadkari motivating the party’s rank and file to ensure the “installation” of a BJP chief minister at Dispur.
Making his much-awaited political debut in the Northeast at a well-attended public rally at Sonaram High School ground here this afternoon, Gadkari made it clear that Assam figured prominently in the party’s scheme of things.
Therefore, the party needed to stick together and go to every village to win the battle for Dispur.
He was quick to add — without referring to the AGP with which it has a tie-up in the state though —that despite hoping to see a BJP chief minister at Dispur, the BJP was open to alliances with like-minded parties.
All the four MPs the BJP has in the Northeast are from Assam, while of the nine MLAs it has in the region, six belong to the state.
Had the four MLAs who voted for the Congress candidate during the March 26 Rajya Sabha elections in Assam not been suspended, the total number of BJP MLAs in the Northeast would have stood at 13.
“We will replace them with four new candidates,” Ranjit Dutta, state party president, said.
“It will be Assam in 2011 and Delhi in 2014. We should work together and take everybody along with us to ensure our objective of ousting the anti-people Congress,” Gadkari said in his hourlong speech, attended by party members from all the seven states of the Northeast.
Gadkari took constant digs at chief minister Tarun Gogoi, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, besides reminding the gathering of Jawaharlal Nehru’s “anti-Assam” policy during the 1962 Chinese aggression.
Using a cricketing analogy to describe the impact of price rise, he said, “I was watching a cricket match recently when someone described Sachin Tendulkar as the best. I pointed out that tel and daal had hit a century while sugar has crossed 50. I think our PM is the best one-day player.”
He asked his party members not to be worried “because four MLAs have left us. Such people have no value in our party.
“Those who want to go, go,” he said.
“The party is for honest and sincere people. The MLAs, MPs can become ex-MLAs or ex-MPs but one thing is constant: a worker does not become an ex-worker.”
Gadkari also reached out to the minorities, saying the party was not against any religion, while dwelling on the issue of unabated influx into the region.
“Those who love the motherland, irrespective of whether he goes to a temple or masjid is an Indian. Nusli Wadia, Jinnah’s great grandson, is a good friend of mine. I don’t understand why, despite the rush of illegal migrants into the Northeast, nothing is being done about the influx. This is because of vote bank politics. But we will continue to fight against it and are prepared for any qurbani that we are called upon to make,” Gadkari said.

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