The Bhartiya Janata Party on Thursday announced to hold its next national executive meeting in Patna in view of the ensuing Assembly elections in the state in September-October.

The party office-bearers, holding first meeting since after their appointment last month, decided to hold the executive meeting either in the last week of May or early June, leaving up to the Bihar unit to finalise the schedule as it has to make the arrangements.

The meeting chaired by president Nitin Gadkari and attended also by BJP parliamentary party chairman Lal Krishna Advani and opposition leaders Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj devoted most of the time in discussing arrangements for a massive march to Parliament the party has planned on April 21 to protest against the price rise.

BJP General Secretary Ananth Kumar said the central office-bearers were assigned responsibilities for the march for which the party is mobilising people from across the country. The party will first hold a rally at the Ramlila Maidan to be addressed by the party leaders before organising the peaceful march.

DANTEWADA: The meeting also adopted a resolution condemning the Dantewada massacre of the CRPF personnel and calling upon all political parties and all shades of opinion to unite in the fight to finish the Maoists. It called for the Centre and States work out a unified strategy to defeat the Maoist movement as it is aimed at the overthrow of India's parliamentary democracy through use of violence.

Asked if the BJP would advocate air strikes to cleanse forests of the Maoists, Ananth Kumar said the government is the best judge of knowing the logistics for dealing with them. The resolution expressed concern over the Maoists gaining strength from the Congress cosying up to them during the elections. It regretted the minimal intelligence network in relation to the Maoist activities and called for strenthening, modernising and equipping the paramilitary forces with adequate power under a time-bound programme.

Gadkari asked the office-bearers to connect themselves with the grass root workers by regularly touring various parts of the country. He has also directed the state office-bearers to spend at least eight days a month in touring to strengthen the party at the grass root level, Ananth Kumar said.

He said the party president also discussed the proposed training courses to be conducted by the party for its office-bearers and legislators to prepare them ideologically and give them opportunity of discussing in depth issues of topicality. The training will also impart them communication skills.

All except two vice-presidents Vinay Katiyar and Hema Malini attended the meeting. It being the first meeting after nominations by the President on March 16, everyone made it a point to attend and as such 58 of 60 party leaders turned up. Katiyar and Hema Malini had informed the party president about their inability to attend in view of prior personal engagements.

Ananth Kumar said Gadkari also directed Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj to take appropriate steps in preventing passage of the Nuclear civil liability bill and foreign university bill as the party sees both having anti-national provisions. The BJP president accused the government of playing "hide-and-seek" on both the Bills instead of taking the parties into confidence.