Chennai:
Top BJP leaders including Nitin Gadkari, L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley would attend the party's two-day state conference at Madurai on April 28 which would discuss Tamil Nadu specific and national issues, BJP National secretary Muralidhar Rao said here on Tuesday.
"Top party leaders, including BJP President Nitin Gadkari, L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley will participate in the state meet. It will be a milestone for the party. Issues related to Tamil Nadu as also national issues will be discussed," he told reporters here.
Mr Rao said the conference was being organised with a two-fold aim of BJP becoming a serious player in the state and not one being on the fringes and the party becoming an agent of change in Tamil Nadu.
He slammed AIADMK and DMK for pulling out its representatives from the multi-party delegation visiting Sri Lanka to assess progress of rehabilitation of Tamils, saying it would make it "less powerful" and criticised UPA government for failing to convince the two parties, including its key ally DMK, not to do so.
"The two parties (AIADMK and DMK) represent the large number of people in the state. If they had participated, the delegation would have been more fulfilling and more complete. Their absence definitely makes this delegation less powerful."
Led by Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj, the delegation left for Sri Lanka on Monday on a six day visit to oversee developmental projects by India and handing over of houses in areas worst affected by the decades-old civil war.
Mr Rao said the government has "failed" to convince the political leadership in Tamil Nadu of its real intention and the real efforts in engaging Sri Lankan Government.
"As a neighbouring country and as a country which has got extended interests in the security context of Sri Lanka, we have to go, we have to convince and we have to impress on the Sri Lanka government," he said.