The Hindu : Revived ties with Pakistan may help BJP in elections: Mahajan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 20, 2004

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National

Revived ties with Pakistan may help BJP in elections: Mahajan

By Mahesh Vijapurkar

MUMBAI, JAN. 19. The positive feelings about Pakistan, generated by the moves initiated by the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the "friendship created," the success at the SAARC in Islamabad and the drop in the cross-border violence, were strong enough to fuel a victory for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance in the coming Lok Sabha poll, the BJP general secretary, Pramod Mahajan, said at a press conference here today.

As the impression in Pakistan was that Mr. Vajpayee was the only one who can find a solution the ``whole of Pakistan is now praying for his victory." "If left to them, they may even elect him from one of their constituencies." Therefore, "if not overtly, then maybe silently, this may favour us in the elections." Solving a 50-year-old deadlock was no mean achievement, he said.

`Foreign origin an issue'

On the move by the Opposition parties for a `secular front," Mr. Mahajan said: "Secularism is a dead issue. There is no point in flogging a dead issue''. But that is not the case with the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin which "cannot be changed in this lifetime. She wants to be the Prime Minister." It would cease to be an issue only if she or the Congress(I) "solemnly affirm that she will not be the Prime Minister.''

If that happened, "I swear by God I will not utter her name even once in the campaign." But simply because of her ambitions, the NDA did not think it needed to have a Constitutional amendment. Nor did it want to "make an individual issue of Ms. Gandhi. The people will democratically decide."

He claimed that barring the Communists and the Rashtriya Janata Dal, none of the other parties favoured a person of foreign origin to lead the country. Not only the National Congress Party but even "half the Congressmen do not want her to be a Prime Minister. Her origin, not her citizenship, is an issue." There were, he said, "no legal hurdles but the Indians do not want her to be the Prime Minister." Parties such as the DMK, the PMK and the MDMK had affirmed that they would not countenance a foreigner as Prime Minister.

`DMK's departure temporary'

Mr. Mahajan said the departure of the DMK and other parties from the NDA was "temporary" but with regard to alliances, "it was still in the melting pot. Anything can happen there." No talks with the AIADMK had been held yet, he said.

Mr. Mahajan said the BJP "was not angry with the DMK." They "temporarily left us." The PMK had left the NDA for the Assembly polls and then returned to it. Now, "it has gone with the DMK, all this in the past 18 months."

These parties, Mr. Mahajan asserted, "had enjoyed the fruits of being in the Government" for five years and had signed "our manifesto" objecting to Ms. Gandhi's candidature for prime ministership. Neither did they have any problem with the BJP's ideology regarding "secularism."

The NDA, he said, was "without doors." "All that any party needed to gain entry was to accept Mr. Vajpayee's leadership and the party's programmes." Many had come and many had gone but the Government continued despite the apparent "instability of an alliance." The stability did not depend on the allies alone but on the "inherent strength of the basic political party's ability to get and keep seats."

Spelling out the options in the various States for the Lok Sabha, Mr. Mahajan said that in Uttar Pradesh, the BJP had always gone on its own and only Kalyan Singh "continues to have a place of strength there." The BJP cannot align with either the Samajwadi Party or the Bahujan Samaj Party; why the BSP "broke its post-poll alliance in Uttar Pradesh to break the Government is still not known to us."

In Andhra Pradesh, the BJP had "an understanding with the Telugu Desam." In Karnataka, "in all probability, we will contest on our own."

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