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Hindutva will be BJP's poll plank, says Advani

Hindutva will be BJP's poll plank, says Advani

Author:
Publication: The Times Of India
Date: January 5, 2003
 
Equating the concept of Hindutva with secularism, deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani declared on Saturday that India was a Hindu nation and hence it was secular.

Addressing the first state executive meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party after the party's poll victory in Gujarat, Mr Advani indicated that Hindutva would be made the BJP's poll agenda during elections in Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and even in the Lok Sabha polls in 2004. "People ask me whether we will make Hindutva a poll plank, I think, we should concentrate on good governance, security and development. But if the opposition raises Hindutva, we will certainly make that an issue," he warned.

Mr Advani said that this was the first-ever election where the polls in a state had affected the politics of the entire country "We should, however, understand what Hindutva or cultural nationalism means. Historically, whoever may have ruled different parts of the country, it is cultural nationalism alone that has united those living in India. Those living in the south visit the north, and vice versa, and this cultural nationalism needs to be understood," he emphasised. At the same time, he warned those who sought to be bitter while defending Hindutva.

He suggested that the Congress had failed understand the pulse of the people in the new situation that had developed after the Gujarat polls in the same way it had failed in 1977 after the Emergency Mr Advani said, "If Nehru believed with conviction in his concept of secularism, those who followed him used religion for vote-bank purposes. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has no problem in going to Ambaji for attracting Hindu vote. Rajiv Gandhi opened the gates of the disputed site in Ayodhya, again for the same purpose. We, on the contrary, firmly believe in building a temple at the Ram Janmabhoomi."

Criticising the media for its alleged anti-BJP campaign, Mr Advani said, "The media campaign actually helped us in Gujarat. The moat it talked of Godhra, the more it helped us. People in Gujarat took it as an attempt to defame, their pride. We got a lot of protest vote." Suggesting that a similar situation might develop in the country, as a whole, he added, Gujarat should become the role model for other parts."
 


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