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Saturday, Apr 24, 2004

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BJP's efforts to woo Muslims belated, says Congress

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR, APRIL 23. The Congress has termed the Bharatiya Janata Party's latest attempts to woo Muslim voters as belated and desperate. "After so much of `feel good', what could be the compulsions for the party to solicit Muslim votes with the help of an hitherto unknown body like Atal Bihari Vajpayee Himayat Committee?'' the Congress spokesperson, Abhishek Manu Singhvi, asked here.

"Who are these new friends of the BJP and the Prime Minister? From where have they sprung up just like that? What is their source of funds?'' Mr. Singhvi sought to know. He was addressing mediapersons at Indira Gandhi Bhavan, the headquarters of the Congress in Rajasthan.

Ostensibly the Congress spokesperson was referring to Mr. Vajpayee's appeal to Muslims "not to feel left out'' the other day when a group of Muslim leaders from "Atal Bihari Himayat Committee'' met him in Delhi.

"The Muslim votes have become a `Ramban' for the BJP now,'' Mr. Singhvi said. It was a matter of shame that the Mr. Vajpayee, who had some years back counted out Muslim votes while speaking in Uttar Pradesh, now solicited their support. It was too early for the community to forget the Prime Minister's volte face in Goa after the Gujarat carnage, he pointed out.

Mr. Singh, who referred to the Gujarat Chief Minister, Narendra Modi as the "unbridled horse'' of the BJP, said that the latter was once again at it with his "debased'' language against the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi. Responding to Mr. Modi's poser in Karnataka the other day on whether Ms. Gandhi could recite "Vande Matram'', Mr. Singhvi said the Congress respected "Vande Matram'' and never tried to make use of it in this manner.

The Congress was the party which adopted "Jai Hind'' and everyone in the country knew the antecedents of the BJP and its leaders, Mr. Singhvi pointed out. The BJP leaders always spoke in different languages to mislead the public on their real intentions. He charged that the BJP was responsible for bringing down the quality of language used in politics to a new low. Mr. Singhvi also tried to correct the general notion that the Congress was against coalition politics. It was the BJP which had lost almost a dozen of its coalition partners -- such as Bahujan Samaj Party, Rashtriya Lok Dal, DMK, Lok Jan Shakti Party, MDMK, PMK and others -- in a few months preceding the current elections while the Congress had been making new friends all the way.

"The Congress made new allies in Maharashtra, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and it is a rainbow coalition in Tamil Nadu,'' Mr. Singhvi said. Her termed DMK as a "historical ally'' of the Congress. He claimed that the Congress alliance was a bondage of ideology while the BJP's was an opportunistic alliance.

As for Uttar Pradesh, the Congress spokesperson said the party kept the negotiations with the Samajwadi Party and BSP transparent to the level possible so that no one would later blame the Congress for a division in the secular votes.

Mr. Singhvi was dismissive of the exit poll results and said the party wanted the results of such polls to be withheld till the last day of polling. "We ask this for the sake of free and fair elections and for a level playing ground. Advance forecasts of this kind affect the voting pattern, otherwise why should the Election Commission take up the counting of votes in all Lok Sabha seats only after the last round of polling?'' he asked.

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BJP's efforts to woo Muslims belated, says Congress