The Hindu : Front Page : UPA government has betrayed Muslims, says Advani

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Monday, Jul 14, 2008
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UPA government has betrayed Muslims, says Advani

Sujay Mehdudia

“There will be no Congress-led government after the next election”

— Photo: V. Sudershan

BJP leader L.K. Advani greeting one of the delegates of the National Minority Women’s Convention organised by the BJP Minority Front in New Delhi on Sunday.

NEW DELHI: Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Lal Krishna Advani on Sunday charged the Congress-led United Progress Alliance government with betraying not only the Muslims of the country but also the common man by endangering their economic security. He called upon people to look ahead, beyond “this discredited, corrupt and opportunist government.”

The “betrayal” was not limited to bartering the country’s interests in the nuclear deal with the United States but the failure was most pronounced in endangering the economic security of the common man, he said at a “Women’s Conference,” organised by the BJP’s Minority Morcha,

“The unprecedented rise in prices of all essential commodities and services has not only further impoverished the poor, but also rendered the middle class poorer. When prices rise, they drill holes in the family budgets; it does not discriminate between Hindu and Muslims,” he said.

Mr. Advani claimed that there would be no Congress-led government after the next parliamentary election.

The BJP was not against minorities. It was only against the “politics of minorityism.” The concept of “majority and minority” should not be stretched too far. “Some political parties, purely for vote-bank considerations, want Muslims to remain forever in the “minority mindset.” “Their politics of ‘minorityism’ is neither helping the nation’s development nor the development of minorities themselves. It is for this reason that I say that the BJP is ‘anti-minorityism,’ but not anti-minorities.”

Urging the minorities support the BJP and the NDA in the next general election, Mr. Advani appealed to the minorities not to remain pawns in the “selfish” politics of the Congress and other “pseudo-secular” parties.

Care for women

He said it was the moral duty of all to care for those who were most deprived of these. “This is why we have to care more for women, because women in all communities are generally lagging behind men.”

Studies showed that Muslim women were among the poorest, educationally most disenfranchised, economically most vulnerable and politically most under-represented group in the country. There may be many factors but as far as the responsibility of the government was concerned, the Congress had to accept the most blame because it had ruled for the longest period, both at the Centre and in many States, after Independence, he said.

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