The Hindu : Our record is good governance: Advani

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Sep 30, 2003

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National

Our record is good governance: Advani

By Our Special Correspondent

VISAKHAPATNAM SEPT. 29. The Bharatiya Janata Party, heading the multi-party National Democratic Alliance Government at the Centre, has fulfilled its commitment to provide good governance to the people in all respects, and so it can seek a fresh mandate in the 2004 Lok Sabha election on a positive plank, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, said here on Monday.

Addressing BJP activists of the north coastal Andhra districts, he referred to the "singular achievement" of the NDA in involving regional parties in the decision-making on national policies, and said that never before had Centre-State relations been so cordial.

Apart from ensuring true federalism, the areas where the NDA had succeeded to a great extent were "suraksha and vikas" (security and development), he said and cited how the Government was able to face boldly the challenges to security from cross-border terrorism and the machinations of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.

"In his Independence Day speech last year, the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, promised a free and fair election in Jammu and Kashmir, and thanks to the fulfilment of that promise, tourists are thronging that State."

On the development front, the NDA Government's achievements in the last five years had been extraordinary, he said. "During the nearly 50 years of the Congress rule, that party had failed on all fronts and the country remained backward, with no drinking water supply, no dispensary and no school in many villages."

Tracing the BJP's growth from a two-member party in the Lok Sabha in 1984 to achieving single largest party status in 1996, he said the parties that head been reluctant to join the BJP then later realised "our commitment to democracy and nationalism" and were now happily sailing with the BJP.

Mr. Advani recalled when Jayaprakash Narayan launched his crusade for purity in public life he invited the then Bharatiya Jan Sangh to join him. "Many in our own party were sceptical about our joining the JP movement, but the then leadership convinced the party activists that JP was appreciative of the party's idealism, as distinct from ideology, and so the party should join the movement. The communists who were also invited by JP declined to join him stating that they could not be in a movement in which Jan Sangh was involved."

Citing that the country had seen seven Prime Ministers between 1989 and 1999, he said that world leaders were wondering whether India was losing political stability. The success of the NDA experiment during the last five years had proved that "political stability is possible in a multi-party coalition if there is perfect understanding and commitment to providing good governance."

The Deputy Prime Minister drew the people's attention to the several bills on electoral reforms passed during the monsoon session of Parliament and said that this was another feather in the NDA's cap.

As per these enactments, there would be transparent voting in future Rajya Sabha elections, "so that no individual with his money power but without popular support could get elected to the Rajya Sabha by bribing MLAs" and members of the armed forces would get the benefit of proxy voting in elections, he said.

He appealed to the BJP workers to go to every household and every village explaining these achievements as part of the party's `ghar ghar chalo, gaon gaon chalo' programme. At the outset, he expatiated on the BJP's plank of cultural nationalism and said that all those living in this country "are Indians irrespective of the faiths they follow."

In his hour-long English speech, translated into Telugu by the Vizag-I MLA, K. Haribabu, Mr. Advani repeatedly praised Mr. Vajpayee's leadership and said, amidst cheers, "God willing, Vajpayee will continue as the Prime Minister after the 2004 poll."

The BJP president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, gave the party workers a new slogan, `Shaktishali Bharat, Shaktishali BJP' and asked them to ensure that the party secured 300 seats and the NDA a two-thirds majority in the next Lok Sabha election, so that the gains of good governance could be consolidated.

The Union Minister of State for Rural Development, U.V. Krishnam Raju, and the State BJP chief, Indrasena Reddy, spoke. The city BJP president, Bandaru Ranga Mohan Rao, chaired the meeting.

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