Calling for bonhomie with the opposition especially in states ruled by the BJP, senior party leader Sushma Swaraj on Sunday said they were not enemies and personal relations should be above politics.
“Our ideologies may be different but we are not enemies of each other. We live in the same country,” she said at the concluding session of a two-day conference of chief ministers of BJP-governed states.
“We cannot imagine democracy sans opposition,” Swaraj said, noting that “personal relations are above politics.”
Giving examples of how the bonhomie could be brought about, Swaraj, who is also the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha, suggested that leaders of states in which BJP is in power should extend a personal touch, arrange dinners and send bouquets to rival party leaders.
“If an opposition leader asks for time, try to give him time. When he comes to your office or residence, ensure that your assistant is there to receive him when he alights from the car and you personally receive him at the doorstep,” she said.
“Any minister who meets Opposition like this… the Opposition is less aggressive towards him,” she said.
“If any opposition MLA is unwell, the Parliamentary affairs minister should send him bouquets and the chief minister can follow up with a call to wish speedy recovery,” she said.
She recalled that when she was both Parliamentary affairs minister and held the health portfolio during NDA regime, she ensured that a bouquet was sent to an MP within half an hour of the person getting admitted to hospitals like AIIMS and Ram Manohar Lohia.
Swaraj emphasised that at least three dinners should be organised, one during every session of the legislature by the chief minister, finance minister and Parliamentary affairs minister for all legislators.
“The practice was there at the Centre during the Atal Behari Vajpayee government but we seem to have forgotten that now,” she said.