The BJP is not opposed to the idea of forming a coalition at the Centre with the support of regional parties if it fails to get a majority on its own, according to former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee.
Talking to newsmen here yesterday before emplaning for New Delhi, the leader of the opposition described the threat by Congress president Sitaram Kesari, to withdraw support for the United Front government as a bluff. This was so because the Congress as well as the United Front were surviving on the same platform, he said.
He said the BJP would soon launch a movement on various national issues like the Ganga water pact and illegal immigration from Bangladesh to India.
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He said economic liberalisation had not benefitted the poor. Despite a plan allocation of Rs 10,000 crore in the Union budget during the last five years, there had been no proper infrastructural development, he said.
Earlier addressing a large gathering on Saturday, Vajpayee pointed out that the government at the Centre had been formed not in the interests of the country but to keep the BJP out. In contrast, the coalition government of the BJP and the BSP in Uttar Pradesh was an attempt to deliver the state from an administration that had done nothing to check the serious deterioration in the law and order situation..
The gathering was also addressed by BJP stalwarts like Uma Bharati, Shatrugahan Sinha and Sikandar Bhakt.
The BJP leaders appealed to the youth of Bengal to rise against the atrocities of the Left government. The meet condemned the Farakka agreement signed with Bangladesh, pointing out that it would be detrimental to the interests of the farmers in the state.
Already, Vajpayee said, many farmers have been forced to shift from rice to potatoes, which needs less water, with the result the state grew more potatoes than its infrastructure could handle.
Bakht added that though his party has been termed communal, other parties in the country were communal, too. He said that his party believed that the country was secular because 86 per cent of the population was Hindu. Otherwise Muslims would have been subject to the same treatment as Hindus were in Pakistan at the time of independence.
Vajpayee called for reciprocal relations with neighbouring countries. He said it was all very well being generous but such generosity should not be at the cost of the nation's welfare.
Sinha pointed out that despite serious attempts at stemming the onslaught of the BJP, the party had grown from merely two seats in the Lok Sabha in the eighties to nearly 200 seats today.
Referring to H D Deve Gowda as the sleeping prime minister, he added that little was being done for the poor. Thirty-six per cent of the population in the country was below the poverty line. The figure was 54 per cent for Bihar.
Uma Bharati pointed out the need to combat internal enemies before external foes could be tackled.