<b>BJP lowers flag first time for a rival</b>
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->When BJP president Rajnath Singh âspontaneouslyâ ordered the party flag to fly half-mast at its headquarters on 11 Ashoka Road as soon as Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy was officially declared dead, it was a signal to his colleagues that they must become part of the collective mourning for the Andhra chief minister.
The move, said a source close to Rajnath, was âunprecedentedâ in the party that had never in recent memory lowered its flag when any big leader of a rival party had passed away. Not even for Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. Nobody recalled what the Jan Sangh did when Jawaharlal Nehru died.
âRajnathji identified himself with Reddy. They are sons of farmers, sons of the soil who identify themselves with the poor and not the elite. Rajnathji also admired his dynamism. The circumstances of his demise were extraordinarily tragic. This moved him so much that he took the decision on the spot,â the source said.
The BJP governments in Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh announced a two-day mourning â again a first for the party.
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L.K. Advani, who flew to Hyderabad to pay homage to Reddy, made it a point to mention the Andhra chief ministerâs 1,400km-long padyatra in 2003 to âreach out to the massesâ.
Sources said Advani, a veteran of numerous yatras, had told his confidants after the Congressâs victory in Andhra in 2004 that there was no substitute to âdirect contactâ with people and no number of chopper rides could yield the same kind of electoral dividends.
Former BJP president M. Venkaiah Naidu,
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<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->When BJP president Rajnath Singh âspontaneouslyâ ordered the party flag to fly half-mast at its headquarters on 11 Ashoka Road as soon as Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy was officially declared dead, it was a signal to his colleagues that they must become part of the collective mourning for the Andhra chief minister.
The move, said a source close to Rajnath, was âunprecedentedâ in the party that had never in recent memory lowered its flag when any big leader of a rival party had passed away. Not even for Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. Nobody recalled what the Jan Sangh did when Jawaharlal Nehru died.
âRajnathji identified himself with Reddy. They are sons of farmers, sons of the soil who identify themselves with the poor and not the elite. Rajnathji also admired his dynamism. The circumstances of his demise were extraordinarily tragic. This moved him so much that he took the decision on the spot,â the source said.
The BJP governments in Gujarat, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh announced a two-day mourning â again a first for the party.
..
L.K. Advani, who flew to Hyderabad to pay homage to Reddy, made it a point to mention the Andhra chief ministerâs 1,400km-long padyatra in 2003 to âreach out to the massesâ.
Sources said Advani, a veteran of numerous yatras, had told his confidants after the Congressâs victory in Andhra in 2004 that there was no substitute to âdirect contactâ with people and no number of chopper rides could yield the same kind of electoral dividends.
Former BJP president M. Venkaiah Naidu,
..<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->