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Advani calls for a new-look BJP

Rajesh Ramachandran in New Delhi

Outgoing Bharatiya Janata President L K Advani today sealed the shift in his party's priorities, by telling the BJP national executive meeting in New Delhi that the "rashtra mandir was no different from building the Ram mandir."

He called for a new BJP which "will be guided not by the issues of yesterday, but by the agenda of tomorrow." This agenda is also the 'bold new approach' initiated by the most successful man to head the BJP in its brief history.

Advani, who will step down from office after two terms on May 3 at the national council meeting at Gandhinagar in Gujarat, suggested that the Ayodhya issue be taken out of ''both judicial and legislative spheres and confined only to exploring a peaceful solution through concerted dialogue.''

The executive, attended by 132 of its 155 members, included Prime Minister A B Vajpayee. Notable absentees were vice-president Rajmata Vijaya Raje Scindia who is still in hospital, Gujarat Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh.

Referring to the responsibility that the BJP-led coalition government shoulders because of its composition and the numerical base of support in the Lok Sabha, Advani said as the largest party in the ruling alliance, "the BJP must act with the highest sense of responsibility, foresight and, if I may say so, with a sense of mission."

He appealed to the cadre that the party's strategies in states must be subordinate to its national strategy. "As a broad policy it should be our endeavour to develop the right coalition chemistry with the allies by constantly enlarging the area of common interests and shrinking -- or, at any rate, inactivating -- the area of differences."

The party has now been told that it has to occupy the centre-space vacated by the Congress by bringing Adivasis, Dalits and minorities into its fold.

Advani stated that though it was ideology, read contentious issues, that brought in the party's fastest growth during 1989-96, it "is not the same ideological factors which have sustained our growth and have brought us new political allies."

So, the outgoing president's call to the BJP was to transform itself into a party embracing all sections of society and all regions of India.

Advani, in his speech, also sought to reassure the saffron cadre that "this approach is fully consistent with our advocacy of cultural nationalism, because we have never understood Hindutva as a narrow, exclusive or discriminative concept."

Explaining that there is no hidden agenda for the government as alleged by the opposition, Advani said the three contentious issues -- Ayodhya, Article 370 and uniform civil code -- had to be left out of the national agenda because "national interests prevailed over ideology".

In an effort to keep its cadre from getting disillusioned over sidelining the contentious issues, Advani also spelt out that "good governance in most spheres becomes possible only when it is de-ideologised and de-politicised."

Bereft of its saffron ideology, the party's state units have been cautioned not to rub their allies the wrong way: "I would like all our colleagues, especially those in responsible positions in the state units, to realise that the interest of the coalition at the Centre are paramount. The party's strategies in states must be subordinate to the national strategy.

The party cadre has also been asked to keep the organisational structure intact, to be the link between the people and the government so that the party can keep a tab on the government and ensure that macro issues are taken care of and promises are fulfilled.

He referred to the complex relationship between the party and the government and said they should do all that was needed to live up to the people's expectations.

Advani called upon workers to be vigilant, active and work as a team to see that the government's performance and programmes were conveyed to the people and feed back the people's response and grievances to the government, party general secretary M Venkaiah Naidu informed newspersons later.

Though Advani said the government is guided by the national agenda, the party's position has hardly changed but for the cosmetic approach towards mainstream status.

"Let us use the coming decade exclusively for nation building -- in other words, for building a magnificent Rashtra Mandir in which all the children of Bharat Mata can live in peace, prosperity, and security, irrespective of their caste, religion or regional affiliations. This, in any case, is what our party had all along been saying while championing the cause of Ram Mandir in Ayodhya."

And the home minister was silent on abrogating Article 370 and implementing a uniform civil code on which the party's official stand was that it need be taken up only when it gets a two-third majority necessary to bring about a constitutional amendment.

The two-day national executive, which began today, will be the last one presided over by Advani. Naidu announced that the next party president, "most probably" Kushabhau Thakre, would take charge of the party on May 3, at its national council meeting in Gandhinagar.

The very fact that Thakre's appointment was officially announced today, when the last date of withdrawal of nominations for the post, is April 15, shows that there would be no election to the post.

In the afternoon, the national executive took up the 12th Lok Sabha election results state by state. Four southern states -- Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh -- had already presented their reports.

Paying attention to Maharashtra, the executive listed four reasons for the alliance's debacle in the recent elections: firing on Dalits in Ramabai Nagar in Bombay, non-implementation of promises such as providing 4 million houses for slum-dwellers, anti-incumbency factor and Congress's alliance with the Republican Party of India and Samajwadi Party.

And there was a veiled warning for the Janata Dal government in Karnataka when the BJP spelt out that out of the 244 assembly segments it got a majority in 110 and its ally Lokshakti in 25, whereas the ruling party had the upper hand in just 10 segments.

Additional reportage: UNI

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