Jaitley’s sulk a misunderstanding in big family: Joshi

Kolkata, March 14  Playing down the controversy over senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley skipping a party meet, party veteran Murli Manohar Joshi Saturday said such “misunderstandings” happen in a big family.

“There is no problem in the BJP. In a big family, at times there are misunderstandings. These kinds of things happen in a big family,” the former central minister told the media here. 

Jaitley, who is in charge of the BJP’s election campaign, was miffed at the appointment of Sudhandhu Mittal as coordinator for the party’s campaign in Assam and joint coordinator for the northeast, without consulting him. He skipped the party’s central election committee meeting Friday.

To persistent queries from scribes on Jaitley, Joshi said: “You ask him (about his absence). May be he had some work. It is the media which blows up such things.”

Joshi said the BJP was on a strong wicket after getting new allies in place of parties like the Trinamool Congress and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) which have broken ranks with the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

“We have got O.P. Chautala’s Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Ajit Singh’s Rashtriya Janata Dal as new friends. During the last five years, the success story of BJP is considerably bigger than what the media projects,” he said.

Joshi termed the Congress-Trinamool alliance as one prompted by the need to fight against a common foe - Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

But when asked if he thought the Congress was really a foe of the CPI-M, the veteran leader said: “In this election, they are foes. But as (Sitaram) Yechury of the CPI-M says, they may join hands after the polls.”
Joshi categorically said that building a Ram temple in Ayodhya will have a place in the BJP manifesto. “It is not only an issue of the BJP, but the issue of the entire country. We feel everybody should come together to build the temple. If necessary, the law should be amended.”

He did not agree with the remark that the BJP remembers the Ram temple only before elections. “It’s the media which remembers the temple during the elections. But it is an issue for us throughout the year.”