MUMBAI: Bharatiya Janata Party president L.K. Advani is optimistic of an "impending return" of the National Democratic Alliance to the "nation's helm" after early Lok Sabha elections. He brushed aside his party's recent "troubles" and held the Congress responsible for all corruption in the country, including in the BJP.

He cited the victories in the recent elections to the Bihar Assembly and the Ahmedabad Corporation as examples of the country's readiness to oust the Congress and bring the NDA back to power. "I feel that the Lok Sabha elections will come early, and the people of India will be looking to the BJP. We should not be found wanting at that time," Mr. Advani said departing from the prepared text in his address to delegates to the three-day BJP national council session, which opened here on Wednesday.

Appeal to poll panel

If the Congress and the leadership of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who was here on Wednesday, were his main targets, Mr. Advani was equally vitriolic in his criticism of the Left. He said the Communist Party of India (Marxist) repeatedly won elections in West Bengal "because it has undermined democracy." The Election Commission should ensure the return of democracy to West Bengal, just as it had done in Bihar.

There was just a passing reference in the speech to the recent expose, which led to the expulsion of six BJP members from Parliament, even as Mr. Advani described the Congress as the "fountainhead of corruption."

He said: "If the scourge of corruption is to be removed from our society, the Congress would have to be ousted from every lever of power." Power corrupted, but it was the Congress in power that corrupted absolutely.

Praise for Modi

Mr. Advani praised Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi for setting a "shining example of a transparently honest and effective government."

Not unexpectedly, he emphasised ideology and idealism, saying the BJP was in politics not for power but to serve the country. He supported the idea of across-the-board disqualification of candidates from all elected posts if they had more than two children.

Mr. Advani criticised Jawaharlal Nehru for steering India away from its "true ethos" of cultural nationalism (the phrase used by the BJP as a synonym for Hindutva). He claimed that it was the BJP and the Vajpayee Government that "shaped contemporary India" and made development the party plank. The Ram temple issue was a "unifying programme," which saved India from "divisive forces." These forces sought to "dismember" the "intrinsic unity" of the country, pitting caste against caste. In short, Mandir saved India from the effects of Mandal.

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