NEW DELHI, 27 December 2003 — Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is likely to go for an national elections next April or May, the ruling Hindu fundamentalist BJP said yesterday, to cash in on a booming economy and an overall “feel good” factor.

Parliamentary elections are due before next October, but already there is intense pressure on Vajpayee to hold them in the next few months to exploit the surging fortunes of his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which swept several key state elections this month.

A final decision is expected at a party meeting to be held on Jan. 11-12 in the southern city of Hyderabad. But party spokesman Prakash Javadekar said after a meeting of senior BJP leaders that bringing forward the poll appeared to be a forgone conclusion.

“Have you any doubt?” Javadekar told AFP when asked about the chances of an early vote. He added that although a final decision would be taken at the Hyderabad meeting, the party leaders discussed yesterday an “action plan keeping in mind the likelihood of early elections”.

“Today, the (party) general secretaries charted out a course of action in the event of an early election,” he said.

The main opposition Congress party, routed in polls on Dec. 1 in three Hindi-speaking heartland states, said it was ready to take on the BJP. “The sooner they are held, the better,” Congress spokesman Anand Sharma told AFP.

The move for early national polls has gained momentum since the BJP scored its landslide wins at the state level.

Vajpayee is playing his cards close to his chest but has told party workers to get ready to face “the coming challenge”.

“There is no room for complacency after the victory in the three states as time is of essence,” he said on Thursday at a celebration for his 79th birthday.

A big element favoring early elections is the “feel good” factor in the country, with economists hailing 2003 as a bumper year for the economy following good monsoon rains along with a booming stock market.

The economy is forecast to grow by around seven percent — near the government’s long-term target of 8 to 10 percent.

Another factor tempting Vajpayee to call early elections is confusion in the Congress party’s ranks following its rout in the state elections.

“The total disarray of the Congress camp is a huge advantage for BJP,” said political analyst Yashwant Deshmukh. “The opposition is absolutely non-existent. (Congress chief) Sonia Gandhi’s ratings are continuously plummeting. There seems to be no credible alternative to Vajpayee.”

A slew of opinion polls has shown Gandhi, the Italian-born widow of slain Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, way behind Vajpayee in the ratings.

Gandhi, 56, has come under heavy criticism from the BJP and the media for her foreign origin, faltering Hindi and lack of political experience compared with other parliamentary veterans such as Vajpayee.

Gandhi entered active politics only in 1996 at the urging of her party, while Vajpayee has half a century of political experience under his belt.

Political sources also say an April or May election is being favored as the government can ill-afford another “populist” budget after big concessions were given to the middle class, the BJP’s main support base, in the last budget.

Yet another factor is that two key allies of the BJP, which heads the more than 20-party National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition government, want general elections around April to time in with polls in their respective states.

And reciprocal peace initiatives between India and Pakistan after the two nuclear-armed countries came to the brink of war last year over the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir have raised the country’s spirits.

“If there is a feel good factor internally, externally too there is a feel good factor,” Deshmukh said.

Vajpayee is due to visit Islamabad for a Jan. 4-6 regional summit and is likely to meet Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, a move analysts say could further break the ice at the highest level.

Hindu Group Threatens to Block India-Pakistan Train Service

An ultra-right Hindu group threatened yesterday to disrupt a train service between India and Pakistan scheduled to restart Jan.15 amid a normalization of relations between the South Asian foes.

The Samjhauta Express between Lahore and the Indian border town Attari was ordered shut in December 2001 amid war tensions following an attack on the Indian Parliament which New Delhi blamed on Islamabad.

“We oppose the resumption of the Samjhauta Express in the same way we tried to disrupt the India-Pakistan bus service and we will announce our program to block the train when it is time,” Robin Sharma, general secretary of the Hindu Sena (Hindu Army), told AFP. The firebrand leader said the Indian government had to change the route of the bus from New Delhi to Lahore which resumed in June.

Govt Clears $241 Million in Foreign Investment

The government yesterday cleared 30 foreign direct investment proposals in the chemicals, auto and media sectors worth 11 billion rupees ($241.4 million), a government statement said.

India’s foreign investment and promotion board gave the green light to a nine billion rupee project by Britain’s Gabriel Trade and Investment Company to set up a wholly owned subsidiary to manufacture methanol in India.

It also cleared a high-profile proposal by Britain-based Henderson Asia Pacific Equity Partners to pick up a 19.23 percent equity stake in HT Media Ltd, the publishers of Hindustan Times, for 1.25 billion rupees.