The Hindu : National : ``BJP crisis establishes RSS control''

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Friday, Jun 10, 2005

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National

``BJP crisis establishes RSS control''

Special Correspondent

Advani never directly referred to Jinnah as a secularist, says CPI(M)

NEW DELHI: : The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has cautioned all those who view the Bharatiya Janata Party president, L. K. Advani's statement on Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah as an attempt to shift his party into a "more liberal frame."

Instead, according to the CPI (M), the current "crisis" in the BJP once again established the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's control over the party.

Commenting on this week's turn of events within the BJP in its editorial in the party organ, People's Democracy, the CPI(M) said: "Those political commentators who are seeking to theorise that Advani is attempting to shift the BJP into a more liberal frame must remember that the BJP functions merely as the political arm of the RSS. This being the case, the RSS' efforts to regain the control of state power in India by taking recourse to whipping up inflammatory communal tensions and strife sends ominous threats to India's unity and integrity."

Of the view that the "saffron combination" had not come to terms with the results of the 14th Lok Sabha elections even a year later, the CPI(M) noted that the dramatic developments in the BJP should be seen in the background of the RSS chief K. S. Sudarshan's public demand that senior leaders of the BJP such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Mr. Advani must give way to the next generation. "Therefore, when the RSS chief had pronounced that the older leadership must give way to the younger generation, the change was imminent sooner than later."

Questions interpretation

While stating that Mr. Advani had "never directly referred to Jinnah as a secularist," the CPI(M) questioned the interpretation that he was trying to establish the secular credentials of the RSS and its leaders in India by characterising Jinnah as a secular person.

"If Jinnah, despite his two-nation theory and the consequent Partition of the country, can be described as a secularist, then Savarkar, who propounded the two-nation theory full two years before Jinnah, is a patriot while Advani & Co. are secular!''

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