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Narendra Modi emerges as virtual No. 2 in BJP |
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The BJP National Executive meeting ended in Bangalore on September 14, with Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi being projected as the party’s mascot for attacking the Congress-led UPA government on the ground of its being soft on terror. This came through again in New Delhi on Friday September 19, when Modi was the star speaker at an anti-terrorism rally organized by the party.
Speaking at the rally in New Delhi, Modi said that the Centre’s approach to fighting terrorism is nothing but a tamasha (staged show). He said: “they are not concerned about innocent people dying but are more concerned about innocents getting caught.”
Asserting that “vote bank politics will continue to feed terrorism and it is time to bring an end to such politics,” he said the Gujarat experience had shown that the war against ter¬rorism could be won. Gujarat atank ke aage mujra nahin karega (Gujarat will not dance before terrorism), he said.
Modi ridiculed the argument against POTA that acts of terror had not stopped while it was in place. “Section 302 [IPC] deals with punishment for murder and yet murders take place; so will they remove the section. Likewise, there is punishment for people travelling ticketless by train. I ask Railways Minister Lalu Prasad if he would do away with it as some people still travel without tickets.”
Pointing out that POTA had helped in conviction of terror¬ists involved in the Parliament and Akshardham Mandir attack cases, he said it was time to act unitedly against terrorists.
He wondered why, when even Islamic countries Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia, had enacted special laws, the Congress was “going soft on terror.”
Modi claimed that he had warned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister Shivraj Patil about the plans of terror¬ists to target Delhi after Gujarat.
BJP president Rajnath Singh said people wanted India to be rich and powerful and were “waiting for Advani to become Prime Minister so that terrorism in the country can be wiped out.”
Advani said that as a show of strength everyone should send a letter to the President of India with three demands for the Central government - approve the anti-terror legislation forward¬ed by Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh; hang Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru, and enact strong legislation to curb terror.
Terror to be BJP’s poll plank, not nuclear deal
The three-day National Executive meeting spelt out a four-point election agenda of the BJP. Listing terror, inflation, crisis in agriculture sector and appeasement politics of the UPA government as the party’s four-point agenda. Party general secre¬tary Ananth Kumar announced the resumption of Advani’s vijay sankalp yatra.
The party’s Prime Ministerial candidate Advani in his concluding address on September 14, called for the strengthening of the NDA, while indicating that the party would use the anti-terror plank, with Narendra Modi as the mascot to hit out at the UPA government in the weeks to come.
Through his 70-minute speech, Advani laid emphasis on the NDA even as he took care to address the BJP’s core “nationalist constituency”. Tearing apart the Manmohan Singh Government for what he called the UPA Government’s “betrayal of the aam aadmi and kisan”, he said: “The burden of the unprecedented price rise is the single most important reason for the aam aadmi wanting to vote out the UPA Government.”
He went on to add: “I hold the Prime Minister responsible for the mega failure (in the fight against price rise and terror¬ism), mega scandal (the ‘cash-for-votes’ scandal that was a crime on India’s Parliament) and mega fraud (the Indo-US nuclear deal, the recent revelations about which are violations of assurances given to Parliament and deception perpetrated on the people in respect of the deal providing light to every house in the coun¬try).”
With the Delhi terror strikes providing the backdrop, Advani asserted that “firm anti-terror action” would be part of the party’s 100-day agenda. “Two Cabinet ministers in this government have publicly defended SIMI without being reprimanded by the Prime Minister. If the people give us the mandate to form the next Government in New Delhi, we shall bring back POTA, recommend Presidential assent for state-specific anti-terror laws, and take other tough measures within the first 100 days,” said Advani
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