External affairs minister Yashwant Sinha addresses the rally in Piska More. Picture by Prashant Mitra

Ranchi, April 4: The BJP today launched its rally blitz ahead of the deputy Prime Minister’s visit to Jharkhand, organising 101 public meeting simultaneously all over the state.

The “carpet-bombing” — as the blitz has been described — covered all the 81 Assembly constituencies in the state.

Today’s meetings will be followed by deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani’s public meetings which begin on April 8 when his “Bharat Uday rath yatra” reaches Koderma.

Advani will address meetings at Telaiya, Barhi, Hazaribagh, Ramgarh, Ranchi, Lohardaga and Gumla, covering 360 km. Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi will also address public meetings on April 7.

BJP leaders today resorted to “Congress-bashing”, holding it responsible for the evils of the country and urged the people to return the NDA coalition back to power, if they wanted all-round development of the nation.

Addressing the main function at Piska More, external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha, who is also the chairperson of the BJP election campaign committee in Jharkhand, came down heavily on the previous Congress governments for all the problems plaguing the country.

“Take for example the Kashmir problem. It is due to the Congress. The issue could have been solved easily had the Congress leaders displayed maturity. The issue was completely mishandled. One can see how this problem has magnified,” he said.

Questioning the very leadership quality of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, Sinha said: “Being a cabinet minister, I have the opportunity of seeing Mrs Gandhi from close while giving speeches in Parliament. She cannot say anything without a written speech.” He said Sonia is a reader and not a leader, who does not have a vision or blueprint for solving the problems of the nation.

About the carpet-bombing, the senior leader said: “We are organising 101 meetings all over the state simultaneously, all being addressed by various leaders. This proves that BJP does not have a leadership crisis which is not the case with our rival Congress, which has not been able to name even its prime ministerial candidate.”

Criticising the wrong policies of the Congress governments, he said: “I wonder how the Congress, in spite of committing so many mistakes, goes to the voters to give it one more chance to rule. Now it is up to you chose between Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is a mature leader, and Sonia Gandhi, who represents a dynasty.”

Talking about the stability of the Vajpayee government, Sinha said: “No any non-Congress government had completed its full term. This is the first time that an non-Congress government has completed its five year term. At no point of time, nobody raised doubts about the stability of this government.”

Both state BJP president Abhay Kant Prasad and the state organising secretary, Hridaynath Singh, admitted to The Telegraph that it is for the first time that the party had chalked out such a strategy to woo the electorate.

”We have sent a four-member team to each of these 101 places. The chief of the teams is a top leader of the party. The other three members of the team would be assisting the chief during the public meetings,” Singh said in Jamshedpur.

He said the rallies are aimed not only to woo the voters but also to enable the party assess the ground realities.

Insiders of the state BJP informed that all these teams would submit reports to the state leadership vis-à-vis the pulse of voters.

Some of the specific points where these teams have to give feedback to the state leadership include voters response to the rallies, mood of the voters who attended the rallies, the areas where the crowd presence was low and the reasons for it, mood of the electorate towards the party candidates, whether the voters have tilted towards rival candidates.