RAJKOT: About an hour into the public meeting, the 50,000-capacity pandal at the Chaudhary High School compound was just about half-full. And by the time L.K. Advani was completing his address before embarking upon his `Bharat Suraksha Yatra' from this Saurashtra town in Gujarat, more had left the venue.

As the former Defence Minister, Jaswant Singh, rose to speak, the crowd harassed by the heat under the canopy, started leaving. Seeing the restless crowd, Mr. Advani too was initially hesitant to make a long speech but he spoke for about 30 minutes.

The only speaker the Rajkot crowd heard with rapt attention was Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who spoke just before Mr. Advani.

Mr. Advani once hit out at his detractors within the party, saying that groupism and indiscipline, which were alien to the BJP all these years, had started rearing its head within the "most disciplined organisation." He attributed it to the "Congressisation" of the BJP. "It is perhaps because the party has grown too large at a very short time that all kinds of indiscipline has entered the BJP," he said.

The venue was dotted with posters hailing the return of Sanjay Joshi as the national general secretary of the BJP. He is now considered a bitter critic of Mr. Advani and Mr. Modi. There were also many huge posters coming up in various parts of Rajkot and through his yatra route proclaiming, "Advani, Jinnah Bhai Bhai."

Mr. Advani made it clear that he was in no mood to toe the RSS line to return to hardcore Hindutva. All through his address, he sounded apologetic to Muslims, repeatedly making fervent appeals to the minorities for an "honourable settlement" of the Ram mandir issue. He said that while in power, the BJP had considered three options for construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya. But the NDA partners rejected the idea of a temple through an Act of Parliament. Of the remaining two, the best solution would be through understanding between the two communities.

"Even the judicial order may not be acceptable to all, but if it can be resolved through understanding, the kind of affinity and good relations it will generate between the Hindus and Muslims will be unprecedented," he said.

Mr. Advani, who arrived at the famous temple town of Dwarka on Wednesday night, offered prayers at the temple and then went to Porbandar to pay tributes to Mahatma Gandhi. His 246-km yatra route on the first day up to Ahmedabad, where he halted for the night, passed through small towns and villages where the kind of response he is known to generate in the BJP stronghold of Gujarat was not there.

Attacking the Congress-led UPA Government, which, he said, was engaged in "self-welfare" rather than "people's welfare," Mr. Advani said the "competition" between the Congress, the Left parties and some other political parties on who could appease the Muslims most, was harming not only the country, but also the minorities themselves.

He said the former Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, helped strengthen the BJP's base. "But for Mr. Rajiv Gandhi's ill-conceived Shah Bano amendment, the people may not have realised the Congress party's pseudo-secularism and turned to the BJP in such large numbers."

Referring to the India-United States nuclear deal, he said it amounted to a "sell-out" to the U.S. "It is an abject surrender. Are we not limiting our nuclear options by signing the deal with the U.S.," he asked and cautioned the Centre to immediately rectify the policy.

Both Mr. Advani and Mr. Modi hit out at the Congress and the Left parties for the recent resolution in the Kerala Assembly recommending the release of the main accused in the 1998 Coimbatore bomb blasts from Tamil Nadu jails.

Demands apology

Mr. Advani demanded an apology from Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for the "Congress-Left complicity" to pass such a resolution when they were asking the world, particularly Pakistan and Bangladesh, to fight against terrorism.

Mr. Advani, Mr. Jaswant Singh and the Chief Ministers of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Vasundhara Raje Scindia, showered lavish praise on Mr. Modi, who, they said, had set an example before the country on how to run a State. "We have learnt a lot from Gujarat and want to model the development of our States on these lines," Mr. Chauhan and Ms. Scindia said. Mr. Modi launched a frontal attack on the UPA Government for setting up the U.C. Bannerjee Commission, which, he said, was apparently aimed at "bailing out" the criminals engaged in the Godhra train carnage. He asked whether the Supreme Court would take note of it and punish the Centre for the "crime," which was no less offensive than Zahira Sheikh turning hostile in court.

Criticises NBA activists

He also hit out at the opponents of the Narmada dam and urged the people of the State to join him to "fight against all the elements who come in the way of the early construction of the lifeline of Gujarat."

Turning to his Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan counterparts, Mr. Modi said all the three Governments had promised to solve the rehabilitation problems if specific instances were given, "but they [the opponents] are not interested in solving the problems of the people and only want to keep the issue alive. Gujarat will never yield to such unfair pressure tactics."

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