The party, which heads the federal coalition government, is holding a two-day conclave beginning Friday in the city of Indore in the central state of Madhya Pradesh to discuss strategy for forthcoming state and parliamentary elections.

"We will discuss and pass a resolution on Iraq. It will be the first thing before the meeting," Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP or Indian Peoples' Party) general secretary Pramod Mahajan told reporters.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani, BJP president Venkaiah Naidu will attend the meeting.

Vajpayee has drawn flak from the opposition for refusing to directly condemn the US-led strike on Iraq and it has repeatedly demanded a parliamentary resolution on the issue, which the government has refused to allow.

The issue has snowballed into major political embarrassment for the government within parliament and has been the subject of political rallying outside.

A total of 166 delegates of the national executive of the party are meeting against a backdrop of elections in November in four key Hindi heartland states -- Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Delhi and Chhatisgarh -- all ruled by the opposition Congress party.

The national executive, BJP's highest policymaking body, will spend considerable time reflecting on past electoral debacles and strategy-building for the coming polls.

The party had a spectacular win in December, returning to power in riot-hit Gujarat on a pro-Hindu wave in which radical Hinduism was the central issue and Chief Minister Narendra Modi, accused by opposition for his role in the rioting, was the central campaigner.

The so-called "Gujarat experiment" and "Modi card" were used again in elections in Himachal Pradesh state, but they failed to work and the BJP was kicked out of one of the few states it ruled.

Now the BJP rules outright in just two states and as part of a coalition in a third, out of 28 states. The Congress is in power in 16 states and the rest are held by other parties.

With the four key states going to the polls -- elections which are being termed the "semi-finals" before parliamentary elections in 2004 -- the BJP has taken a decision not to use the Hindu card to gain votes.

"I am not playing any cards. I am fighting a serious election," Mahajan said. "Hinduism is our ideology, which we shall follow as a party but we shall not fight elections on this. Elections will be fought on local (state) issues."

SPACE.WIRE