Date:26/02/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/02/26/stories/2006022606371200.htm

National

Ram is prestige, roti our necessity: Uma

Says Madhya Pradesh Government has forgotten her development-related promises

Jinnah Mandsaur (MP) : Expelled BJP leader Uma Bharti has described Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah as a fine personality who fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Mahatma Gandhi for Independence but later took the country to Partition.

Addressing a meeting here on Friday, as part of her "Janadesh Yatra," she said the then Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, enhanced the nation's prestige through Pokhran-II, but Mr. Advani bowed at Jinnah's mausoleum in Karachi.

``We should all unite for restoring Bharat Mata's glory. The BJP, which ascended to it's peak of popularity in the name of Lord Ram, digressed from basic ideology. Ram is this country's prestige and roti [food] is our necessity,'' she said in an oblique reference to her recently concluded Bhopal-Ayodhya Ram-Roti Padyatra.

``That is why we undertook a resolve, at Ayodhya, on "Panchnishtha" - "swabhimaan" (self-respect), "suraksha" (security), "swadeshi", "shuchita" (probity) and "swaraj" (self-rule),'' Ms. Bharti added.

Alleging that the Madhya Pradesh regime forgot about her development-related promises, she claimed that her government would come to power after the (Shivraj Singh Chouhan) dispensation collapsed under the weight of its ``sins.''— UNI