Surajkund (Haryana):
300 of the BJP's top leaders from across the country are meeting near Delhi to finalise their strategy ahead of elections in states like Karnataka, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh, where the BJP is in power. They will also discuss how to maximise their campaign against the government, framed in recent months by a series of corruption scandals, and reduced this month to a minority after its biggest ally, Mamata Banerjee, quit the coalition over new economic reforms.
"The government isn't working; it is unable to manage allies and blames the Opposition for all that is wrong," said the BJP's general secretary Ravi Shankar Prasad in his speech this morning. He also said that instead of tackling the corruption within, the government uses the CBI to target political opponents. "An extension counter of the CBI should open at the Congress office," he said.
The three-day meeting of the BJP's national executive will be followed by a gathering of the BJP National Council, which has 1,200 members, and will formally adopt a resolution to pave the way for a second consecutive term as party president for Nitin Gadkari.
While Mr Gadkari and other senior leaders like LK Advani are present at the national executive meeting in Surajkund on the outskirts of the capital, Karnataka heavyweight BS Yeddyurappa has skipped the session, opting to enrol for a three-day course with the Art of Living Foundation in Bangalore, headed by spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. His party no doubt wishes fervently that he finds the inner peace that the Foundation promises.
For close to two years now, since he was forced to quit as the chief minister of the BJP's only government in the South, Mr Yeddyurappa has been in perma-rebel mode. He threatens repeatedly to split the BJP - a warning that has teeth, given his extensive following among local leaders. In July last year, he chose his successor when corruption charges ousted him from office. A year later, he asked that his replacement be removed, and deftly delivered his new favourite, Jagadish Shettar, to the chief minister's office.
With elections in Karnataka just months away, Mr Yeddyurappa's absence from this week's three-day brainstorming session does not bode well for the BJP.
The party's leaders will also decide how to continue their opposition to the centre's decision to liberalise the retail sector by allowing foreign super-chains to set up shop in India. Like most other parties, the BJP participated in a large nationwide strike last week against the reform. The Prime Minister has stressed that the policy is not binding upon state governments, but that didn't stop his main ally, Mamata Banerjee, from exiting his coalition, forcing his government into a minority.
The new fragility of his coalition has given the BJP a leg up in its attack against the centre. The ruling UPA has also been engulfed by the coal scandal, with the national auditor alleging that private firms gained windfall profits of upto 1.86 lakh crores because the government did not auction coal fields between 2004 and 2009. The government has rejected that math, but the Supreme Court has asked for an explanation of how coal licensees were screened and selected.