Wary of the charge the Bharatiya Janata Party was pushing the country towards a mid-term Lok Sabha election, party veteran L.K. Advani said here on Sunday that it was the “ruling dispensation” that was indulging in “scare-mongering,” and the talk of early elections was its “sponsored agenda.”
Addressing the party's national executive committee meeting on its second and concluding day, he said the 2014 Lok Sabha elections would witness the “best ever performance of the BJP so far.” This, he indicated, was because it was “time for a decisive change,” and the corruption issue looming large on the political horizon would prove a turning point.
It seemed the Opposition party was mindful, lest it attract the charge it was bringing back the spectre of political instability that set in after the Bofors pay-offs case led to the defeat of Rajiv Gandhi in 1989, followed by the coming and going of several governments till 1991 when Narasimha Rao became the Prime Minister and completed his five-year term.
Mr. Advani said the Congress was only indulging in scare-mongering. In fact, “it does not have the courage” to call an early election. The Congress could ill-afford an early election, given the stink of corruption that had enveloped its government and the high inflation that was hurting the people; 2010 would be remembered as a year of “stinking corruption,” but it was also the year when the National Democratic Alliance's victory in the Bihar Assembly elections had kindled the hope for change, he said.
Clearly, it was this mood in favour of change that the BJP was banking on to see the end of the Congress rule at the Centre in 2014.
