Winter strategy discussed

New Delhi: BJP veterans Lal Krishna Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, who had recently attacked the party leadership, on Wednesday attended the Parliamentary party executive meeting at the Prime Minister's residence where top leaders discussed the strategy for Winter Session of Parliament starting on Thursday.

Advani and Joshi are among the members of the group which meets to formulate the party's strategy during a parliamentary session. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah were also present in the meeting.

Advani and Joshi were among the four senior leaders, including Yashwant Sinha and Shanta Kumar, who had wrriten a scathing letter on the Diwali eve, targetting the top brass following the Bihar assembly election drubbing for BJP. They had said that the party had been "emasculated" in one year. However, showing signs of thaw, Advani had recently said Modi was on track to bring 'achhe din' (good days) while Kumar had expressed his happiness over the party reaching out to them.

The NDA members met at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's official residence on Wednesday evening where the strategy to deal with any possible attack by the opposition on issues like "growing intolerance in the country", price rise of essential commodities and others was prepared.

"We met and discussed our resolve to carry out important work of the government during the winter session," a BJP official told IANS.

He said the government and its allies know that the opposition has issues and it could try to disrupt the proceedings of the house. But they have been assured by the Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu and others that the government was ready to discuss their issues, and that they should not disrupt the parliamentary proceedings.

The NDA members also supported the BJP for "countering the intolerance agenda", another BJP leader said.