The Hindu : Front Page : BJP will tell voters: ‘compare functioning of the two coalitions’

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Saturday, Jul 12, 2008
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BJP will tell voters: ‘compare functioning of the two coalitions’

N. Ram

Advani disagrees with perception that he is a hardliner, cites his quite different image in Pakistan

NEW DELHI: “You just compare the functioning of these coalitions — one the NDA, the other the UPA — and see the contrast!” is “one of the points that we are going to hammer home to the electorate.” The “first and foremost guideline of coalition dharma” is that whatever is agreed upon, in a common minimum programme (by whatever name called), by parties with divergent views within a coalition should be implemented, not policies on which there was no agreement. The present political crisis is related to the failure of the Congress to accept and practise this first principle of coalition governance.

As for the BJP, the lesson it has learnt from its, and the National Democratic Alliance’s, defeat in the 2004 general election is: “Don’t be overconfident. And do not neglect your own constituency.” The “limitations imposed by a coalition” need to be understood and heeded not only by the party leading a coalition government but also by “its constituency.”

These are some of the highlights of the concluding part of the in-depth interview given to The Hindu by Lal Krishna Advani, Leader of the Opposition, at his residence on Wednesday.

Mr. Advani did not agree with the view that the BJP placed its core demands of Ayodhya, Article 370, and the Uniform Civil Code “on the back burner” during NDA rule between 1998 and 2004. “If we were to have a government of our own and we don’t do it, then it’s on the back burner. But when a coalition is formed of several parties who do not agree,” it is a different story.

The BJP’s top leader and former Deputy Prime Minister disagreed, in his own way, with the widespread perception that he was a hardliner on core Hindutva issues. He cited his reputation in Pakistan, where the perception of him as a hardliner “should have been the maximum,” as being something quite different from the image he has “somehow acquired.” He added that “not only adversaries but others also … have contributed” to this image but he did not mind it.

He responded in detail to questions on Gujarat 2002, the intra-parivar controversy relating to his Jinnah remarks, communal tensions whipped up over the Amarnath shrine land affair, and the handling of terrorism by the UPA and NDA regimes. The interview concluded with the BJP ideologue’s response to a question seeking an update on his concept of Hindutva.

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