BJP in election mode, calls Central Election Committee meeting

New Delhi, Jun 25 (UNI) The Bharatiya Janta Party will hold its Central Election Committee meeting here tomorrow to take stock of the political situation against the backdrop of the nuclear deal issue and review its electoral strategy.

The BJP is ready with its first list of around 160 nominees to face the Lok Sabha polls whenever they are held. The party's Election Management Committee will also be reviewing its poll preparedness, sources said.

The reason for choosing the party nominees for Lok Sabha elections much earlier was to give the candidates a head start and enable them to do the ground work in their respective constituencies.

The Central Election Committee chaired by BJP president Rajnath Singh will be attended by BJP's Prime Ministerial nominee L K Advani and senior leaders Jaswant Singh, Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, M Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley.

The decision to finalise Lok Sabha nominees was taken after the National Executive concluded here early this month.

Earlier, speaking to newspersons former BJP president M Venkaiah Naidu today accused the Congress, UPA and the Left parties of discussing the Indo-US nuclear deal to divert attention of the people from price rise, inflation and food and fertiliser shortages.

The government had converted the era of surpluses into an era of shortages with no concern for the commonman.

He alleged Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Commerce Minister Kamal Nath claimed that price rise and inflation was a global phenomenon but the economies of Japan, Canada, Germany, and Malaysia were all able to contain the inflation around three per cent unlike India where the inflation had crossed the 11 per cent mark.

BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said the flip-flop policies of the UPA government had taken the country towards, uncertainty, instability and inflation. People were not concerned if the Congress government led by Dr Manmohan Singh would survive or not as its exit was certain but doubts were only about the timing of the exit, he added.

UNI MCN AM RAI2121