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Terrorism to be BJP’s major poll plank

— Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Strategy session: BJP leaders L.K. Advani, Rajnath Singh and Jaswant Singh being felicitated by Karnataka leaders H.N. Anantha Kumar (left), B. S. Yeddyurappa and Sadananda Gowda at the inauguration of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s National Executive Meeting in Bangalore on Friday.

BANGALORE: India must fight against terrorism in the same spirit as it fought to eliminate imperialism in the thirties and forties, Bharatiya Janata Party president Rajnath Singh said here on Friday.

In his opening address to the party’s three-day conclave, Mr. Singh said the United Progressive Alliance was hampered in this fight because of its “vote bank politics” and only after L.K. Advani becomes Prime Minister would a “decisive initiative” be taken to eliminate this worldwide menace.

Mr. Singh’s speech made it clear that for the BJP terrorism would be a major poll plank along with inflation. His charge was that the UPA was “blinded” by vote bank politics to the extent that it cannot differentiate between national interests and national perils. He made a string of references from the repeal of Prevention of Terrorism Act to delay in hanging of Parliament attack case convict Mohammad Afzal and the handling of the ban on the Students Islamic Movement of India to make his point.

Earlier the BJP used to make the point that terrorist attacks were taking place in Congress and non-BJP ruled States, but after the recent incidents in Jaipur and Gujarat, Mr. Singh declared that only BJP-ruled States have been successful in making arrests after such attacks. The party president also talked of “economic terrorism” unleashed by terrorists whose funds were finding their way into the stock market and the attempt to weaken the financial markets through large amounts of fake currency notes.

The BJP also focused on what can be broadly described as Hindutva issues – it demanded Ramar Sethu be declared a national protected monument; it asked for abrogation of Article 370 of the Constitution that gives special status to Jammu and Kashmir; and it charged the UPA with trying to “obliterate the symbols of India’s identity” by changing logos and symbols. On this last issue it cited the removing of the lotus from the logo of Kendriya Vidyalayas.

He recalled his last major speech when he had differentiated between ‘panth nirpekshata’ and ‘dharma nirpekshata’ pointing out that the lotus was a flower symbolic of Indian culture and should not be taken to be a symbol of a specific religion. India’s secularism should be neutral towards different religious denominations not neutral to ‘dharma’ or religion itself.

He wanted to know where were the lakhs of beneficiaries of the much hyped farm-loan waiver announced in the last Union budget. The government should give a figure on how many farmers had benefited and where. He also questioned the benefits of high growth rates pointing out that during the earlier National Democratic Alliance regime growth rate was double the inflation rate during that period and in the UPA period it was inflation that was double the rate of growth. His charge was that high prices were not only directly affecting the pockets of the common man but were also adversely affecting the entire economic structure of the country.

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