05-05-2006, 12:20 PM
BJP has a bright future to start a new industry in kerala - selling votes to congress and Muslim league.
http://www.flonnet.com/fl2226/stories/20...801500.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, its candidate, former Union Minister O. Rajagopal, got a never-before 2,28,052 votes (29.86 per cent of the votes) in the prestigious fight in Thiruvananthapuram.
But what followed was a lacklustre campaign. The BJP failed even to provide its candidate with agents in many polling booths and Padmanabhan could manage only 36,690 votes, a mere 4.83 per cent of the total votes polled. He lost his deposit in the only Lok Sabha constituency where the BJP proved its strength in 2004.
Rajagopal, who perhaps represents the most credible face of the BJP in Kerala, pointed out that the party had earlier found <b>Mukundan guilty of trading its votes to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), and had removed him as organising secretary and asked him to shift his headquarters to Chennai</b>. When he refused, the then party president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, had personally intervened to shift him to Chennai. But in the run-up to the Thiruvananthapuram byelection, Mukundan pitched tent at the party headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram, ignoring the directive of the leadership, he said.
Asked whether the guilty would be removed from the BJP, <b>Rajagopal made the most startling of all his allegations</b>. He said: "The troubles within the party are being engineered by those who amassed wealth using the party's address. It is said the individual wealth today of the most prominent among them would be over Rs.10 crores. You must be aware of the petrol pump deals. <b>One of them has very close links with a construction company that is associated with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim</b>. This individual has even acquired a residential flat from them for free."
Even its most popular leader, K.G. Marar, was defeated in Manjewaram, where the party then had its most prominent presence. <b>According to one of the members of the party inquiry committee, trading votes with the Congress-led coalition also led to the Muslim League, a UDF constituent, getting the maximum number of seats in the State Assembly then.</b>
From all indications, what started as a strategic trade-off with the UDF, perhaps under the genuine impression that the UDF would then help the BJP to win a seat or two in the Assembly or in the local bodies, <b>soon deteriorated into regular vote-for-money deals that were used by a section of leaders to amass wealth</b> - an allegation raised against the BJP by its political rivals for long and now corroborated by the statements of O. Rajagopa
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http://www.flonnet.com/fl2226/stories/20...801500.htm
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, its candidate, former Union Minister O. Rajagopal, got a never-before 2,28,052 votes (29.86 per cent of the votes) in the prestigious fight in Thiruvananthapuram.
But what followed was a lacklustre campaign. The BJP failed even to provide its candidate with agents in many polling booths and Padmanabhan could manage only 36,690 votes, a mere 4.83 per cent of the total votes polled. He lost his deposit in the only Lok Sabha constituency where the BJP proved its strength in 2004.
Rajagopal, who perhaps represents the most credible face of the BJP in Kerala, pointed out that the party had earlier found <b>Mukundan guilty of trading its votes to the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF), and had removed him as organising secretary and asked him to shift his headquarters to Chennai</b>. When he refused, the then party president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, had personally intervened to shift him to Chennai. But in the run-up to the Thiruvananthapuram byelection, Mukundan pitched tent at the party headquarters in Thiruvananthapuram, ignoring the directive of the leadership, he said.
Asked whether the guilty would be removed from the BJP, <b>Rajagopal made the most startling of all his allegations</b>. He said: "The troubles within the party are being engineered by those who amassed wealth using the party's address. It is said the individual wealth today of the most prominent among them would be over Rs.10 crores. You must be aware of the petrol pump deals. <b>One of them has very close links with a construction company that is associated with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim</b>. This individual has even acquired a residential flat from them for free."
Even its most popular leader, K.G. Marar, was defeated in Manjewaram, where the party then had its most prominent presence. <b>According to one of the members of the party inquiry committee, trading votes with the Congress-led coalition also led to the Muslim League, a UDF constituent, getting the maximum number of seats in the State Assembly then.</b>
From all indications, what started as a strategic trade-off with the UDF, perhaps under the genuine impression that the UDF would then help the BJP to win a seat or two in the Assembly or in the local bodies, <b>soon deteriorated into regular vote-for-money deals that were used by a section of leaders to amass wealth</b> - an allegation raised against the BJP by its political rivals for long and now corroborated by the statements of O. Rajagopa
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