Advani Committed to Ram Temple

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Advani pitches for Ram temple

Tribune Reporters

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20050407/nation.htm#1

New Delhi, April 6

BJP President Lal Krishan Advani today sought to address party's hard

core Hindutva "constituency" by not only reiterating commitment

to "reconstruction" of the Ram temple at Ayodhya but also by stoutly

defending party's relationship with the RSS and expressing concern

over "demographic invasion" of the country due to "infiltration" from

Bangladesh.

 

Delivering his presidential address at the silver jubilee session of

the party's National Council, Mr Advani said one of the important

reasons for the BJP's debacle in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections was

that the party's "core constituency" had been taken for "granted".

 

Mr Advani said "our party's commitment to reconstruction of the Ram

temple at the Ram Janambhoomi in Ayodhya remains total, unshakeable

and irreversible".

 

"We continue to believe that a negotiated settlement through dialogue

between representatives of the Hindu and Muslim communities in an

atmosphere of mutual trust, goodwill and accommodation is the most

desirable route to solve this long-pending issue", Mr Advani said

expressing satisfaction over "consensus" among NDA partners over this

approach.

 

Defending the party's ties with the parent organisation, the BJP

President said, "our inflexible stand on our association with the RSS

gave us a distinct ideological identity, about which we have never

been apologetic, nor will we ever be".

 

Claiming that a much larger constituency of patriotic Indians,

outside formal reach of the `RSS parivar', support the BJP, he

said, "we need to incessantly and persistently strengthen our bonds

with organisations and individuals in this larger fraternity through

mutual dialogue".

 

Mr Advani referred to a Congress Working Committee Resolution of 1999

stating that "Hinduism is the most effective guarantor of secularism"

and said the UPA Government's "desaffronisation and detoxification

campaign, under the malignant influence of the Communists, does not

square with this resolution".

 

The BJP chief charged the Congress with "abjuring all faith in

democracy, which categorically rejects privileges by birth, and

blatantly falling back to feudal and monarchic ways".

 

The council meeting, attended among others by NDA Convener George

Fernandes, got off to a start after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari

Vajpayee unfurled the party flag in the presence of senior leaders,

including party Chief Ministers and state unit Presidents.

 

He expressed serious concern over the "demographic invasion" of India

from Bangladesh. "This could even lead to another partition of

India," he said.

 

Asserting that the BJP viewed the threat of "demographic invasion" as

a national issue, he charged the Congress and the Communists with

extending a "tacit invitation" to more infiltrators "by enslaving

themselves to the politics of minorityism".

 

Mr Advani demanded the immediate repeal of the IMDT Act and convening

of an all-party meeting by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to evolve a

national consensus on the issue.

 

The BJP chief also stressed on an urgent need to have a rethinking on

the country's approach to population control and evolve a new

strategy to effectively tackle the problem.

 

Pointing towards Mr George, the BJP President said "very same people,

who had been making wild allegations against him and boycotted him in

Parliament for several years, had to themselves give clean chit to

him."

 

"Today, even the Communists have asked the Congress to clarify their

stand on Mr Fernandes," the BJP leader said adding Mr Fernandes'

presence here at the National Council gives the complete message.

 

Interestingly, Mr Fernandes as well as former BJP President Bangaru

Laxman, who had to make an unceremoneous exit from the party's top

post after the Tehelka expose, were seated on the front row on the

dias along with top leadership of BJP, including Mr Advani and Mr

Vajpayee.

 

L. K. Advani also strongly defended the "dual membership" -- one for

the party and the other for the RSS -- saying the decision not to

sever links with the Sangh Parivar had been vindicated with the party

emerging as a reckoning force in the country's bodypolitic.

 

Without singling out any of the BJP-ruled states, he said the

challenge to win the people's confidence fell on the BJP-run

governments and they should remember that "better coordination

between the party and the government is necessary to provide good

governance."

 

The Bharatiya Janata Party today gave a call for launching a campaign

to oust the "weak" United Progressive Alliance government as it

presented a year-long silver jubilee state specific programmes for

political consolidation and for the expansion of the party cadre.

 

Announcing the programmes, former party President M. Venkaiah Naidu

said the party would seek to strengthen existing strongholds and

strive for its revival in places where it had suffered a setback in

the 2004 Lok Sabha elections.