New Delhi, May 14: A day after the NDA was voted out of power, the BJP parliamentary board is holding a meeting here today to analyse the reasons for the party`s poor performance and discuss the post-poll scenario. The party, which projected Prime Minsiter Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the NDA`s mascot in the poll campaign, is expected to insist on his becoming the leader of the opposition with a view to assert its faith in his leadership. The meeting at Vajpayee`s residence is expected to be attended among others by Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani, party president M Venkaiah Naidu, Union Ministers Murli Manohar Joshi, Jaswant Singh, Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj, besides party general secretaries Pramod Mahajan, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Sanjay Joshi. While speculation is rife that both Naidu and Mahajan may offer their resignations owning moral responsibility for the debacle, Vajpayee is understood to have praised their hard work at a meeting of party`s top leaders yesterday and advised them to continue doing the "good job", party sources said.
The party is also expected to analyse the reasons for the debacle, including timing of elections, the `India Shining` campaign and whether steps like the Atal Himayat Committee and issuance of a "fatwa" by Shahi Imam of Delhi`s Jama Masjid in favour of BJP damaged the party`s prospects among its core Hindu voters, the sources said. The parliamentary board meeting would be followed by a meeting of the party`s office bearers at BJP headquarters which is expected to take stock of the post-poll scenario. Naidu is scheduled to address a press conference later in the day. Bureau Report