Gandhinagar:
For years now Pratibha Advani has been part of her father LK Advani's political campaigns, but given the significance of this year's elections, the daughter of the BJP's senior-most leader seems to have hit the streets in right earnest to ensure a smooth victory for the party from Gujarat's Gandhinagar, a seat held by her father since 1991.
So today, it was campaign time for Pratibha in Sanand town, barely some kilometers away from the Tata Nano car plant. Despite a couple of car manufacturing units, an effective road network, Sanand had rejected a BJP candidate during the last assembly polls. This is amongst the two assembly segments in Gandhinagar constituency which are held by the Congress party. The remaining five, which importantly, form the significant part of the constituency, are held by the BJP making the party candidate's job little less tough.
But Pratibha and the BJP don't want to show any laxity here. This constituency is significant, given that Mr Advani had rather reluctantly accepted the party's mandate to contest from here, thereby bringing to fore the divide between him and his political disciple Narendra Modi. But the party now wants to push that behind. Pratibha is hopeful of a huge NDA victory. "I am absolutely certain, it's going to be an NDA government at the Centre," she told NDTV.
Pratibha denied that there were fissures between her father and the BJPs prime ministerial candidate. "It's a media creation. The entire BJP is rallying behind and campaigning for my father. Since he won't be able to carry out a day-to-day campaign here and has a national responsibility as well, I am trying to chip in," she said.
Importantly, accompanying her during the campaigning in Sanand was senior party leader Harin Pathak who was denied a party ticket from Ahmedabad East and was threatening a revolt. Efforts by party president Rajnath Singh had ensured that he stayed put in the party. "I am very much with the party. Not just campaigning for Mr Advani will also travel to Vadodara and Varanasi to campaign for our prime ministerial candidate," Mr Pathak told NDTV.