Advani seeks to project a moderate face

The long-delayed Chennai national executive of the Bharatiya Janata Party began today with BJP chief LK Advani explaining why he had called Pakistan's founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah secular.

Referring to his Pakistan visit in June and his remarks on Jinnah, Advani told the party national executive that it was "an attempt to encourage those who attempt to question jehadism".

Advani's had resigned and later recanted his resignation as the party president after his remarks on Jinnah created a furore in the BJP.

In his address, Advani sought to explain his remarks in a larger context of reconciliation with Pakistan, and a way of laying to rest the ghost of Partition.

He also made it clear that any new direction that he was envisaging for the BJP would have to be with the support of the RSS, with which the party shared what he termed a "symbiotic relationship over decades".

"It (his remarks) does not mean that we agreed with the Partition. The logic of history commends us to work with Pakistan as a sovereign country and as a neighbour. As Atal Bihari Vajpayee once pointed out, it may be possible to change history, but we cannot change geography," he said.

Giving further reasons for his remarks on Jinnah, he said Pakistan was going through a crisis of confidence over its "proactive support" to "jehadi terror mongers, and forced Islamisation of society is well documented".

"It is also true," Advani said "that the ruling elite and particularly the growing middle class there have begun to have doubts over this past," the BJP chief said. Advani referred to the restoration of the Katas Raj temple in Pakistan as part of this rethink.

"We need not be apologetic about promoting friendship with Pakistan or for welcoming the moderation that is coming up here, however faint the glow may be now," he added.

He also made it clear that any change in the BJP would have to be along with the support of the RSS.

"There has always been a symbiotic relationship between the Jana Sangh and the RSS, and later the BJP and the RSS. Both the organisations have benefited immensely from this relationship and together they have succeeded in bringing our ideology of cultural nationalism to the centrestage of India's public life," Advani said in a clear signal to the Sangh that it also needed the BJP to take its agenda forward.

Advani concluded his speech by calling on partymen to capitalise on the anti-Lalu Prasad mood prevalent in Bihar, where the party had a good chance of forming a government.