Advaniji's remarks at BJP's 25 year celebration

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>[bJP News] Advaniji's remarks at BJP's 25 year celebration

>Wed, 6 Apr 2005 09:52:48 -0700

>

>PRESS RELEASES

>April, 05, 2005

>

>BHARATIYA JANATA PARTY

>

>Meeting of the National Executive

>To Mark the Party's Rajat Jayanti

>

>Presidential Remarks by Shri L.K. Advani

>

>New Delhi : April 5, 2005

>

>I am pleased to welcome you all to this meeting of the National Executive, which

>is being held on the eve of the Sthapana Divas of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

>But this is not an ordinary Sthapana Divas; it is the Rajat Jayanti of our

>Party. Hence, we planned this meeting of the National Executive in such a way

>that it dovetails into tomorrow's historic special session of the National

>Council.

>

>We have two draft resolutions for the consideration of the National Executive.

>One of them, as is customary, encapsulates the Party's stand on salient issues

>and developments that have dominated the national scene during the period

>between the last and this sitting of the National Executive. And as you'll see

>from the draft, it covers a fairly wide range of issues, attesting to the fact

>that this period has been truly eventful.

>

>But it is the other resolution that holds a special significance for all of us.

>It is aptly titled: "Celebrate the Party's Rajat Jayanti with Pride and

>Resolve." By adopting it, we'll be performing a sacred duty of extending our

>grateful tributes to all those - both those who are no more with us and those

>who are still with us - who distinguished themselves with their dedicated and

>lifelong service to the Party.

>

>The operative part of this resolution - namely, the resolve to strengthen the

>Party ideologically, politically and organizationally - has been fleshed out in

>a separate plan of activities proposed to be taken up during the course of the

>Rajat Jayanti year. This will be presented before the National Executive for

>discussion and adoption.

>

>Friends,

>

>The mosaic of political developments changes constantly, bringing in new

>news-making issues and players on the national scene, month after month and

>year after year. It is often difficult to glean, from a close range, a pattern

>or a defining direction in these developments. However, when we view them with

>the benefit of a 25-year perspective, they reveal some broad underlying

>truths.

>

>The most important of these truths, as far as politics in India is concerned, is

>that until 1980 anti-Congressism was the main axis around which all the

>political developments and strategies of those days revolved. In sharp

>contrast, in 2005 we see anti-BJPism as the main axis around which contemporary

>political events are moving. Thus, the BJP has succeeded in demolishing the

>one-party supremacy of the Congress and transforming Indian polity into a

>bi-polar formation. What is more, the BJP is clearly the stronger of the two

>poles in terms of ideological distinctiveness, organizational muscle and

>commitment to the basic values of democracy.

>

>The unexpected setback that we received in the Lok Sabha elections last year

>does not in the least negate this truth. We shall learn the right lessons from

>this experience and forge ahead with even greater resolve to strengthen the

>pole that the BJP represents.

>

>I would like to call it the "Pole of Hope" since a lot of people in India are

>indeed looking to the BJP with hope and expectation in today's situation, when

>they feel alarmed by the direction in which the Congress party is trying to

>take this country.

>

>Its recent actions in Goa and Jharkhand have once called into question its

>commitment to democracy. I sometimes wonder if the Congress party has learnt

>any lessons at all from its disastrous misadventure of imposing the Emergency

>Rule, whose 30th anniversary we shall commemorate this June.

>

>Similarly, the Congress party's myopic approach to several potent threats to our

>national security, unity and integrity fills me with anxiety about what would

>happen to India if this approach guided politics and governance for a prolonged

>period.

>

>I shall comment on these matters in some detail in my address to the National

>Council tomorrow.

>

>When I say that we should resolve to strengthen the BJP, it is not aimed merely

>at enabling our Party to perform better in democratic pursuit of power. Rather,

>it is meant to remind ourselves that the likely threats to democracy, national

>security and India's unity and integrity can be effectively countered only if

>the forces of nationalism and the forces of democracy become stronger.

>

>This, I believe, is the call of the Rajat Jayanti to the Party.

>

>Today and Tomorrow, we shall reaffirm our resolve to heed and act as per this

>call.

>

>Thank you.

>

>Vande Mataram.

>

>

>

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