Border tension overshadows BJP meet in Kerala

KOZHIKODE: The BJP has left no stone unturned in making the national executive and council meetings here from Friday to Sunday a mega event  though the central government is under pressure following the terrorist strike at the  Uri Army camp.  Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive  at Karipur airport at 3. 45 p.m. on Saturday  as scheduled. BJP national president Amit Shah will kick off the year-long birth centenary celebrations of Deendayal Upadhyaya  at Kadavu resort on Friday morning.

Mr Amit Shah  arrived here a day ahead of the programme.  Apart from attending the  delegates’ session, Mr Modi will address  a public rally on Kozhikode beach on Saturday evening. He will then attend  the ‘Smriti Sandhya’ programme at the Zamorin's Higher Secondary School where  the Jan Sangh's meeting was hosted 50 years ago. Deendayal Upadhyaya was then  elected as the all-India president of the party. The national executive will begin at Kadavu resort at 10 a.m. on Friday with all  national general secretaries being huddled for a brain-storming session. 

At 3 p.m.,  the national office-bearers, state presidents and  state organising secretaries will meet for a prolonged session.   At a meeting  at the Zamorin’s Higher Secondary School at 7.45 p.m.,  Mr Modi will felicitate the senior BJP leaders who had attended the 1967 Jan Sangh summit.  Veteran BJP leaders like L.K. Advani,  Murali Manohar Joshi, V. K. Malhotra, O. Rajagopal, K. Raman Pillai and a plethora of other senior leaders would  be present.  Those who were locked up in jails in Kerala during the Emergency would also be felicitated.

Mr Modi will attend  the full-day session of the  national council at Swapnanagari grounds from 9.30 a.m. till 5.30 p.m. on Sunday, which will pass a political resolution.  By 5. 45 p.m., Mr Modi will leave for New Delhi by a special flight. A photo exhibition,  ‘Upadhyanam 2016’  is also being held at Malabar Christian College grounds where the pictures of the strikes and protests the Sangh Parivar had staged over the last several decades and those of the Jan Sangh  summit in 1967 will be displayed. It will conclude on Sunday evening. The BJP state leadership  claims that 1,700  leaders would  be in  Kozhikode during the three days and  the majority of them have already landed.   Some 400 media personnel would  throng  the Kadavu resort and Swapnanagari grounds on all the three days.