New Delhi, January 5
In a step which could strengthen the party’s electoral prospects in Bihar in the coming Lok Sabha elections, the BJP today formally opened its doors to a central minister and President of the Shoshit Kranti Dal Nagmani.
Mr Nagmani, who is the Minister of State for Social Justice and Empowerment, announced the merger of the party at a function held at Vithalbhai Patel House in the presence of the BJP President, Mr Venkaiah Naidu and a score of BJP leaders and ministers.
Incidentally, Mr Nagmani was elected to the Lok Sabha on the Rashtriya Janata Dal ticket and he went on to split the party to form his Shoshit Kranti Dal. Subsequently, he was made a minister in the Vajpayee Council of Ministers last year.
Mr Nagmani said the decision to merge with the BJP was taken by the party’s Executive at its meeting held earlier in the day. He claimed that his party had members in Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Delhi.
He said he considered Mr Vajpayee as the guardian of the country and he had taken the decision to fulfil the dreams of his father late Jagdev Prasad.
Mr Nagmani described the BJP as secular, and said terming the party as fundamentalist was part of a Congress disinformation campaign. He said during the Congress regime the percentage of Muslims in
government jobs had come down from 39 per cent to 3 per cent. He also held the Congress responsible for the Ayodhya tangle as late Rajiv Gandhi had opened the locks of the controversial Ramjanambhoomi-Babri masjid complex.
Welcoming Mr Nagmani and his partymen into the partyfold, BJP President M. Venkaiah Naidu said the BJP was confident of winning 300 seats on its own in the coming Lok Sabha election. He exuded confidence that the NDA would get a two-thirds majority. The BJP’s base was expanding day by day, while the Congress, having been marginalised, was looking for alliances.
The welcome ceremony was attended by Minister of State Vijay Goel, BJP Parliamentary party spokesman Vijay K. Malhotra and official spokesman Prakash Javedekar.
