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Coalition partners cold towards BJP's first anniversary bash

George Iype in New Delhi

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's plan to publicise the achievements of his government which completes a year on March 20 has received lukewarm response from his coalition partners.

Most allies have not responded to the invitation from the BJP leadership to attend the grandiose celebration planned to felicitate Vajpayee. The event is being organised in New Delhi's fashionable and upmarket Hauz Khas village.

What is more, the PM's plans to address rallies and public meetings in the states represented by its regional allies have come unstuck as alliances partners like the Trinamul Congress, All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Akali Dal and Telugu Desam have decided to boycott the celebrations.

Thus when Vajpayee goes to Calcutta to address a public meeting organised by the BJP's West Bengal unit on March 20, Trinamul Congress chief Mamata Banerjee will be out of the city. Mamata is scheduled to attend a rally of the Loktantrik Congress, the breakaway Congress group, in Lucknow on that day.

AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalitha will also not attend the PM's engagements when he visits Tamil Nadu to attend BJP programmes at Tiruchirapalli on March 21.

BJP sources said the party also planned programmes to felicitate Vajpayee in Hyderabad and Chandigarh in an attempt to "renew friendship" with the TDP and Akali Dal. But the BJP leadership abandoned the plan as TDP president and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu and Akali Dal president and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal displayed disinterest.

The BJP leadership is now banking on the Hauz Khas bash.

The event, supervised by Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan on March 19, will be a cultural super-show. It will be conducted on 30 stages designed by top Bollywood set director Bijon Dasgupta.

A day before the Hauz Khas celebrations, a day-night cricket match between Kapil Dev's XI and Sunil Gavaskar's XI will be held at Delhi's Ferozshah Kotla stadium on March 18. The match will be telecast on Doordarshan's new Sports Channel.

While the Delhi Development Authority has already brought innumerable wooden poles and balusters for construction in Hauz Khas village, the coalition partners are uneasy about attending the mega-programme.

"We feel there are better ways to celebrate the government's anniversary programmes. The government is giving bad signals to the people and the allies by conducting a multi-crore bash in the upmarket Hauz Khas village," Trinamul Congress leader Sudip Bandopadhay told Rediff On The NeT.

He said though the BJP leadership has invited the coalition leaders to attend the programmes, "we have not decided whether to participate or not."

Bandopadhay said his party expects the PM to launch a series of welfare and people-friendly programmes when the government completes a year in office.

But even as the government goes ahead with its anniversary extravaganza, the Special Protection Group -- the elite force that protects the PM -- has advised him against attending the Hauz Khas celebration, citing security reasons.

The SPG has suggested that the Hauz Khas village -- covered by a large number of trees, shrubs, congested roads, narrow by-lanes and shops -- is not the ideal place for the PM to sit through. Therefore, it is likely that Vajpayee will spend only a few minutes at the event.

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