The Hindu : Front Page : Neglect of Hindutva among reasons for defeat: Advani

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Thursday, Jun 24, 2004

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Neglect of Hindutva among reasons for defeat: Advani

By Neena Vyas

MUMBAI, JUNE 23. As the Bharatiya Janata Party continued its "soul-searching" exercise to look for the causes of its electoral defeat, the Leader of the Opposition, L.K. Advani, zeroed in on the neglect of Hindutva and lack of political focus on consolidation of its "ideological constituency" as one of the main reasons for the "totally unexpected" election results.

Just before a four-page political resolution was adopted by the national executive committee meeting here on Wednesday, Mr. Advani made a strong case for restoring the party's emotional bond with the Sangh Parivar led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Speaking for about 40 minutes towards the end of the debate on the political resolution — which was adopted unanimously — he said the party must be always mindful of the Sangh, the karyakartas (party workers) and the "core constituency" that had over the years supported the BJP because of its ideological moorings in Hindutva. Senior party leaders present during the debate later said that Mr. Advani felt the BJP had lost some of its support base built up over the years by presenting itself as "the secular party" even while labelling the Congress, the Left and other parties opposed to the BJP as "pseudo-secular."

Mr. Advani's was the key address in many ways, for party leaders agree that the party organisation is very much his creature. A point that Mr. Advani underlined — it was also noted by the party president, Venkaiah Naidu on Tuesday — was that the BJP was "an integral part of a movement." There was no ambiguity about the fact that he was referring to the RSS as a movement.

Besides Hindutva and the Sangh, Mr. Advani said the party's MLAs and MPs had not nursed their constituencies well — 50 per cent of re-nominated BJP MPs lost — and they had not maintained proper contact with party workers. Nor were they proper in their behaviour and attitude towards the grassroots-level karyakartas.

The party general secretary, Arun Jaitley, who briefed the press later, pointed out that Mr. Advani's message was that while the Vajpayee Government performed well, it was not enough to bring the party back to power. What was needed was "prudent politics" which keeps the interests of the party's support base in mind while formulating policies.

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