India's National Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU

Vol. 15 :: No. 25 :: Dec. 05 - 18 , 1998

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COVER STORY

'We fell short of our expectations'

Interview with Sunderlal Patwa.

Former Chief Minister Sunderlal Patwa, who has been elected from the Bhojpur constituency, is one of the few senior BJP leaders who won their Assembly contests in Madhya Pradesh. Patwa has taken a stoic attitude with regard to the result, but refuses to specify the reasons for the party's defeat. Excerpts from an interview he gave V. Venkatesan in Bhopal on November 29.

What went wrong with the BJP in Madhya Pradesh?

I cannot say just now. But we have improved our performance.

You said earlier that your effort will be to improve the party's record of winning in 222 Assembly segments in the Lok Sabha election.

No comparison with the Lok Sabha election, please. The issues were different. Certainly we fell short of our expectations.

Was there any undercurrent that you failed to notice?

No. Even the exit poll results were favourable to us. The Congress(I) too did not expect a victory of this scale.

Was the performance of the party at the Centre an issue in the elections?

A.M. FAROUQI

The Congress(I) tried to divert the attention of the people to the Centre's performance. But we sought to focus attention on local issues. The Congress(I) succeeded in its efforts to some extent, but not fully.

The Congress(I)'s victory is attributed to its decision to field many new candidates whereas you changed only a few candidates.

We tried our best. Will anyone field candidates just to lose the elections?

Some of your senior leaders such as Kailash Joshi and Vikram Verma have lost.

There are so many reasons. Polling has been poor. The harvest season is on. Besides, people are fed up with frequent elections. Only eight months ago there was an election. As a result, our supporters did not turn up to vote.

What is in store for the BJP in the future?

We are ahead. We have improved our strength in the Assembly.