PATNA: The BJP leader, L.K.Advani, Feb.7 said the fall of the Narasimha Rao government was inevitable by the end of this year and that his party would come to power, reports PTI.
Addressing public meetings at Darbhanga, Muzaffarpur and here, Advani said his party was not using the temple issue as a ploy to gain power but as a tool to strengthen Indian nationalism and protect the country’s unity and integrity.
Ata time when fissiparous forces are raising their heads in Punjab, Assam and Kashmir, religion and the name of Ram could act as a uniting force,” he said.
Criticizing the Congress and the Janata Dal for using the Muslims as vote banks the BJP leader said that when in power those parties made no attempt to alleviate the condition of the minorities.
Advani denied the charge that the BJP was a communal party and said such allegations had also been made against nationalist leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Bal Gangadhar Tilak whose commitment to the country was never in doubt. Terming the accusation against the BJP and the dismissed government of Kalyan Singh of Uttar Pradesh that they reneged on their assurance to the Center and the courts as “baseless,” Advani said the Singh government had thee’s mandate to build the Ram temple at Ayodhya and as such there could be no question of any petrayal.
He said the Kalyan Singh government, in its reign of 18 months maintained communal harmony in the state often traumatized by communal riots. No communal ion was witnessed as conflagrant fongas the BJP remained in power. Making a dig at the Prime Minister, Narasimha Rao, and Bihar chief minister, Laloo Prasad, the BJP leader said, “I have found my greatest well-wishers in them. When Prasad sent me to Masanjore after arrest in 1990, the BJP’s strength in the Lok Sabha went up to 199 from 86. Now, when Rao bundled me to Mata Tila people would sec us firmly in power.”
Advani said the Prime Minister was so worried about his own survival in the face of growing dissidence in the Congress that he had no time to address himself to ollier burning issues.
He said the Ayodhya incident was not the result of a wave created by the RSSVHP or the BJP but was a spontaneous response of the majority against appeasement of the minorities.
“The Babri mosque would not have been pulled down had the Center understood the seriousness of the matter and taken carnest steps to solve the imbroglio,” the BJP leader said.
He asserted that the BJP’s movement for temple construction was related to its commitment to strengthening Indian nationalism.
Criticizing the banning of the RSS, the BJP feader said, the Congress “has sown the wind and will reap the whirlwind. People of this great country cannot tolerate such blatant repression of an organization whose nationalism is beyond doubt,” he asserted.
Article extracted from this publication >> February 12, 1993
