Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president L K Advani yesterday said that the disoriented United Front (UF) government at the Centre would not last beyond this year and added that his party is preparing to face the general elections.
Talking to newspersons here, Advani said the party had asked the state units to prepare for another general elections, adding that the national council of the BJP, which will meet for three days at Thiruvananthapuram from March 7, would stress on this aspect and give direction to party units. Asked about the attempts by Congress(I) to increase its strength in the Lok Sabha to more than that of the BJP, the party president said it is hardly a matter of concern to us.
Advani said the Congress was banking on a group of Janata Dal (JD) MPs. The Tamil Nadu Maanila Congress had categorically stated that it would consider supporting the Congress only if it had the required strength.
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Advani said Congress(I) was caught in a catch 22 situation as it was eager to topple the Deve Gowda government, but at the same time was unwilling to face elections. He said that if the previous Narasimha Rao government was the most corrupt government, the UF government was a non government lacking direction and whose coalition partners come out with a plethora of voices in various fields.
Referring to harsh comments about judicial activism, he said that if the executive shrugs its responsibility to curb corruption, the judiciary must step in to do it.
Advani said almost all the political parties have not recognised an important electoral reform of enabling the country's armed forces participate actively in the general elections. Several armymen he had spoken to had said that most of them had not cast their vote in their entire life.
He said he had taken up the issue with the chief election commissioner who said the commission has set up a working group which would, in consultation with army officials, simplify the procedure so that the present unhappy situation is changed.
Advani expressed confidence that the crisis faced by the party government in Rajasthan would be solved soon.
He told journalists that during the next two days the whole issue would be sorted out. Declining to spell out the details he said, We proposed to do what we should do.
Advani, who was on his way to participate in the executive meeting of the state unit being held in Davangere, said the south zone office bearers of BJP would meet in Madras on January 23.