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Sena-BJP's opening rally fails to impress

Shiv Sena-BJP's election campaign suffered a major blow today when less than 30,000 people turned up for their opening rally at Girgaon Chawpatty in Mumbai.

The rally, which was supposed to begin at 5.30 pm, kicked off at 7.00 pm when senior Sena leaders and ministers started arriving. In fact, at 5.30 pm there were less than 1,000 people on the beach front, most of them there for an evening stroll.

It was around 6.30 pm that trucks full of Shiv Sainiks began arriving at the venue, lending some semblance of respectibility to the gathering. It was quite obvious that shakha pramukhs were sent a last-minute SoS to bring in more people.

The Sena chief, accompanied by Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan, arrived around 7 pm and without any apologies for the delay the speeches began.

Thackerey dismissed the reports that Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar had met Pramod Mahajan and that talks were held about an post-poll alliance. He said there was no question of joining hands with Pawar either at the state level or at the national level.

Criticising attempts by Congress to politicise the Kargil issue, Thackeray said: ''They says it was the BJP's mismanagement of the crisis that led to the deaths of hundreds of soldiers. I want to ask them who was responsible when more than 1,000 soldiers of the Indian Peace Keeping Force died in Sri Lanka?''

He also said that his party was never opposed to Bofors guns and that it was only the kickbacks in the deal that they had objected to.

Coming down heavily on Sonia Gandhi, he said: "She can only read what is given to her. Can a leader who is just a reader run a country of 1 billion people."

Taking a dig at the Election Commission he said while the commission has snatched away his right to vote for just one speech he delivered, there were thousands of illegal Bangladeshi illegal migrants who have voted in the past, and will cast their ballot in this election too. ''Is this democracy.'' Earlier, Pramod Mahajan wondered how Mahatma Gandhi's soul would reconcile to the fact his party, which once fought against foreign rule, is led by a foreigner today. "Let Sonia Gandhi speak without reading out a written speech. She has no experience in politics and she is being pitched against A B Vajpayee."

He also dismissed the opposition propaganda that the BJP cannot give a stable government. ''We have proved in Maharashtra that we can give a stable government. Only you must give us a clear mandate,'' he said.

Others who spoke on the occasion included: Chief Minister Narayan Rane, former chief minister Manohar Joshi and Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde.

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