New Delhi:
At the BJP conclave in the picturesque Surajkund on the outskirts of Delhi, party president Nitin Gadkari's speech started with the bashing of the UPA government. The audience comprising top BJP leaders started settling in for more of what has become customary over the last two years - shrill, hostile speeches punctuated with one-line punch lines targeting the Prime Minister and the Congress president. However, Mr Gadkari shifted gears today as he told party workers, "Let's not be known as the party of opposition. Let us be known as a party of good governance."
He added, "Our state governments of Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, and others are doing well despite global slowdown, despite a central government which ignores opposition-ruled states. Let every worker spread the word about that."
Mr Gadkari went on to enlist how workers need to be trained and function - 'ignore ambition, shun protocol.'
Suddenly the BJP was talking positive. Sources say that the change started after the meeting of top leaders in Delhi on Tuesday. Party patriarch LK Advani reportedly stepped in with valuable advice that the party's two-year long anti-corruption campaign might have hurt the Congress, but has not benefited the BJP as the shrill build-up has turned negative.
A party source said, "People unhappy with the Congress are not looking for politics but alternatives and solutions."
The change was visible instantly. Mr Gadkari today while attacking the Congress proposed a "vision document 2025".
But this is not the only nudge Mr Advani provided to the BJP's strategy. The party has been opposing FDI in retail unleashed by the UPA. But it had ignored Mr Advani's suggestion of demanding a special session of Parliament to corner the UPA. On Thursday, the pro-reform right wing party took a left turn and spelt out its intent to make it an anti-
aam aadmi issue. Leading the charge, leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley said, "We are not against reforms but every change cannot be called a reform."
The Congress-led UPA's move to allow FDI in retail has driven Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress out of the UPA. Congress' allies - the Samajwadi Party and the DMK - have protested on the streets against it.
Non- UPA parties like the Left Front, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) and the AIADMK have opposed it heavily. The BJP has aligned its stand with theirs. The idea, according to sources, is to take this coming together to the Winter Session of Parliament where a united opposition along with parties who are saying no to FDI on retail can build a sense of the house against the government move.
The BJP wants to push the government to withdraw FDI in retail which is being termed as Manmohan Singh's return on the reform road and end of policy paralysis of the Centre. The BJP hopes that a coming together of parties who are with the Congress and those who are ideologically opposed to it will end the long isolation of the party, indicated best when Mamata Banerjee walked out of the UPA but the Samajwadi refused to dump the Congress as it would benefit the BJP.
The BJP is pressing for the withdrawal of the FDI move as once implemented it would be difficult for the saffron party to scrap it or support it, if post the 2014 polls the NDA forms the government, say sources.