The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : BJP manifesto not communal: Javadekar

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Monday, Apr 06, 2009
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

BJP manifesto not communal: Javadekar

HYDERABAD: BJP national spokesperson Prakash Javadekar has asserted that the party’s manifesto had raised “constitutional demands” and there was no “nothing communal” in it.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, he rejected the Congress charge that it was communal and pointed out that cow protection mission was dear to Mahatma Gandhi. Does it mean that he was communal, he asked. “Article 44 in the Constitution says we must have uniform civil code,” he added. On building the Ram temple on the disputed site at Ayodhya, he said the BJP wanted the matter to be resolved either by mutual agreement between the two communities or court verdict. “What is communal in it,” he asked and added that the BJP was adopting a rational and not communal approach. The Congress, on the other hand, had given a go by to secularism and become an “out and out communal party” after the Shah Bano case.

He claimed that the Congress was disturbed because of the tremendous response evoked by the BJP manifesto from different sections. The five promises—IT exemption, waiver of all loans and lending of fresh loans to farmers at 4 per cent interest and introduction of reservations for EBCs and poor among upper castes—were well received by the people.

While the BJP was approaching the masses with confidence through concrete programmes, the UPA was disintegrating as allies of the Congress had left it. He predicted that the UPA would lose in 14 States while NDA would gain in 11 States .

He said the BJP’s second phase of electioneering in Andhra Pradesh would be kicked off by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on April 6.

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