Dissident leaders continue with their campaign in Rajasthan

Jaipur, Oct 31 (UNI) Dissident leaders in the BJP's Rajasthan unit today held a closed door meeting with Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Jaswant Singh, continuing their campaign against the party leadership in the state.

The closed door meeting took place at Mr Singh's native village in Barmer district.

The leaders, including Education Minister Ghanshyam Tiwari, Welfare Minister Madan Dilawar, former Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat's son-in-law and Industries Minister Narpat Singh Rajvi, Government chief whip Mahavir Prasad Jain, former BJP state President sitting party MP Lalit Kishore Chaturvedi, MLAs Shankar Singh Rajpurohit and Jogeshwar Garg, assembled at Mr Jaswant Singh's residence in Jasol village to participate in a religious function.

The leaders' meeting lasted for about half an hour.

Later, Mr Singh felicitated the visiting party colleagues.

The dissident group leaders have been mounting pressure on the leadership to concede to their demand during the past few days.

These leaders, alongwith some fellow leaders like Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria and former state president sitting MP Raghubir Singh Kaushal had boycotted the party State Executive Meet in Sawanliaji and ignored Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha L K Advani's presence at the meet.

The BJP high command had taken the group's act of ignoring Mr Advani seriously and held a meeting in New Delhi on Monday evening to review the situation.

The party's gestures however, made no difference and the group seemed adamant to continue with their "mission".

UNI