BJP turns heat on Manmohan

Govt soft-pedalling terrorism issue, says political draft resolution

The draft political resolution placed before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national executive in Mumbai, focused its attack on the Manmohan Singh-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government rather than delineating whether the party will go back to its old Hindutva plank.

Although former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani, in his speech to the national executive did make a strong case for "taking the Sangh Parivar along" the draft political resolution was more an attack on the new government than anything else.

The draft resolution steered clear of reviving old BJP issues such as the Ram Janmabhoomi, uniform civil code and Article 370. Instead it talked of launching a campaign against the new government over its "soft pedalling on the issue of terrorism."

The inclusion of this issue is in direct reference to the Ishrat Jehan and Javed encounter deaths. The two along with two alleged members of a terrorist outfit were gunned down in Ahmedabad by the city police, allegedly because they were part of a conspiracy to assassinate Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

As Jehan and Javed were both residents of Maharashtra and the evidence against them is flimsy at best, the issue has become an election issue in the state.

The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) are arguing for Jehan's innocence while the Shiv Sena and the BJP believe the police version.

However, the main target of the draft political resolution remains Congress President Sonia Gandhi. The BJP has accused her of being a "super Prime Minister".

"For the first time in the country's history, we do not have an elected Prime Minister, but a selected prime minister bereft of real authority. The Congress and its allies are systematically diluting the dignity and honour of the office of the Prime Minister," the four-page draft resolution said.

The communists also came in for special criticism. "Although the government is being run by the Congress on the inside, on the outside it is being ideologically and programmatically run by the communists," says the resolution.

Criticising the "lack of cohesion" in the new government, the BJP charged External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh with "shooting his mouth off on important policy issues reportedly without consultations with the Prime Minister or within the Cabinet committee on security in ways that have embarrassed both the government and the country".

"This is a government in which the minister of ocean development makes statement on Ayodhya and the minister of railways makes statements on Godhra," the draft resolution said. The national executive will end with former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's speech.

The direction that the party will be taking at least before the Maharashtra polls was made clear by party president M Venkaiah Naidu when he asked all members to go back to the basics.

The rest of the mystery has been cleared by Advani when he asked that the Sangh Parivar be taken along in the BJP's decisions. After the "shock defeat" of May 13, the party is going back to past successful formulas.