The Hindu : Congressmen should ponder over `leadership issue': Advani

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 21, 2004

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National

Congressmen should ponder over `leadership issue': Advani

By Our Staff Correspondent

The Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, addressing a crowd at Saunser village in Madhya Pradesh on Saturday during his Bharat Uday Yatra. The Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Uma Bharti, is also seen. - Photo: A.M. Faruqui

CHHINDWARA (MADHYA PRADESH), MARCH 20. The Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, said today that people across the country had started viewing the Congress as an ``irresponsible party'' and would reject it in the coming Lok Sabha elections.

He was addressing a public rally here, as part of his `Bharat Uday Yatra'.

Earlier, he was accorded a rousing reception by the Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Uma Bharti, her Cabinet colleagues, the State BJP president, Kailash Joshi, the Union Ministers, Vikram Verma, Sumitra Mahajan and Prahlad Patel, and senior party functionaries at Satnur, 50 km from Nagpur, when he entered Madhya Pradesh.

Mr. Advani said the Congress, even after ruling the country for more than 45 years, had failed to provide even the most basic facilities to the rural people. Even as an Opposition party, it had behaved irresponsibly, he said and cited its boycott of the function held in Parliament to unveil a portrait of Vir Savarkar, who had fought for the country's Independence and had served 10 years in the Cellular Jail at Port Blair.

Reiterating the importance of a two-party system to strengthen democracy, Mr. Advani said that ``it would be better if we have a two-party system in India.'' ``Politics has become bipolar with the BJP, on the one side, and the Congress on the other.

Mr. Advani asked Congressmen to give serious thought to the ``leadership issue'' and do some introspection on its values and commitment to the cause of the nation. He said the Congress, when out of power, had installed ``puppet'' Prime Ministers — Deve Gowda, Chandra Shekhar and I.K. Gujral. He said that between 1988 and 1998 there had been seven Prime Ministers whereas since the 1998 parliamentary election, Atal Bihari Vajpayee had remained the Prime Minister and was now heading for a hat-trick.

Addressing a public meeting at Saunser near here earlier, Ms. Bharti said that India would emerge as the ``Number 1'' country after Mr. Vajpayee got elected for another term. There would be a Ram temple at Ayodhya and Ramrajya in Chhindwara.

After the parliamentary elections, she would like to take the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, along with the senior Congress leader, Kamal Nath, to Ayodhya for `kar seva.'

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