RAISEN (Madhya Pradesh): Suspended Bharatiya Janata Party leader Uma Bharti announced at a public rally here on Sunday that she would not tender an apology in response to the notice served on her. She wanted party president L.K. Advani and the former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to break their silence and purge the party of those who are "far removed from the grass-root level party workers and have hijacked the BJP."

Ms. Bharti, who is on a "Ram-roti" padyatra from Bhopal to Ayodhya, addressed the media at this district headquarters .

She said the Parliamentary Board, the supreme decision-making body of the BJP, did not have any representative from the weaker sections. "Farmers, Dalits, tribals and women should be given representation in this body." She said she was in dilemma whether or not to reply to the notice. However as the party workers were expecting her to say something, she had decided to clarify her position.

Symbolic presence

Also, women's representation in the Board "is only symbolic at present." A "gang" of those who did have any link with the masses were taking decisions even though they failed to identify with the hopes and aspirations of the lakhs of party workers.

Ms. Bharti said she had been given three days to reply to the show cause notice. The party had done this to her after "she gave 20 years of her life to it."

The reply she sent to Mr. Advani was in three parts. One raised questions about those who had committed acts of indiscipline in the past and asked what action had been taken against them. The second was a technical explanation, she said, and read out the third part of the reply to Mr. Advani. It was actually an affidavit narrating all that she stood for and her commitment to the party ideology.

Ms. Bharti said Mr. Advani and Mr. Vajpayee should not remain "mute spectators." She reminded them of Jan Sangh stalwarts Shyama Prasad Mukerjee and Deendayal Upadhyaya "who lived for the spirit of nationalism and humanism." She quoted Upadhyaya, who said it was his wish that the party be disbanded and a new beginning be made every time it deviated from its ideology.

She asked Mr. Advani and Mr. Vajpayee not to become "hostages in the hands of a coterie devoid of any ideology or principles." Taking a dig at Mr. Advani, she said she would go to Ayodhya and bow her head before Ram rather than die after placing a wreath at Jinnah's mausoleum.

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