National

Rajnath sees no ideological contradiction

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, OCT. 31. The Bharatiya Janata Party does not see any contradiction between the party's ideological commitment and the National Democratic Alliance agenda it had accepted when in power.

The BJP general secretary, Rajnath Singh, is of the view that under the new party chief, L.K. Advani, there will be "greater clarity in the party's ideology," increased "commitment" to it and certainly "no deviation from the ideology." Yet, he does not see any contradiction with the NDA as the "Hindutva we accept as our ideology is the very same Hindutva, a way of life, as defined by the Supreme Court."

Mr. Singh made these observations here while talking to The Hindu and in response to the Janata Dal (United) demand that an NDA meeting be called to ask the BJP to "explain" whether it intended to go back to Hindutva or stay committed to NDA's development-oriented agenda.

The JD (U) leadership made this demand in the context of Mr. Advani's remarks at the party's National Council session four days ago that the BJP was committed to the Ram temple issue and that the constructionwould have begun soon had the Vajpayee Government been returned to power.

Mr. Singh said that those who see a communal element in the BJP's Hindutva should approach the Supreme Court with a revision petition to get its definition revised. "If somebody tells us that our Hindutva is communal, it is wrong. Our party has never conducted politics on the basis of caste, creed or religion."

"The most important thing is to keep national identity intact ... we will not allow any question mark to be put on that," he said, without explaining what he meant by "national identity."

His view was that the setting up of a Commission by the United Progressive Alliance Government to go into religion-based reservations was a communal idea which could be "potentially a most dangerous step that could divide society along communal lines." The BJP was totally opposed to this and would take it up as a major issue.

Internal security

Another important issue was internal security, which the BJP would be expected to take up in a big way. Alleging that the UPA Government was "mishandling or taking lightly" issues related to internal security, Mr. Singh said that it did not put in place any law to deal with terrorists before repealing the Prevention of Terrorism Act, it had not done anything to stop "infiltration from Bangladesh," terrorism continued unabated in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast, and the Andhra Pradesh Government's "dialogue" with naxalites without asking them to surrender their arms was shortsighted and could prove to be a "misadventure."

The party's major tasks were strengthening the organisation, motivating the workers and curbing indiscipline at all levels. His view was that since Mr. Advani knew the organisation thoroughly he would be the right person to get down to this job.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu