| Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said because the Ram mandir was an issue of national discussion it could not be ignored. |
| "We are mentioned this here because we do not want this to become an election issue," the Prime Minister said, indicating that it was included to keep Hindu hard-liners at bay as much as to reach out to minorities and make negotiation a crucial element in the settlement. |
| Releasing a "manifesto for Bharat and a Bharatiya manifesto," the Prime Minister also said if voted to power, the NDA would bring about legislation to ensure that "important offices could only be accepted by India's natural citizens by Indian origin," betraying clearly the NDA's shift in campaigning stance in the ongoing election, from development to Sonia Gandhi's foreign origins. |
| The battery of leaders on the dais at the function to release the manifesto ""which took place at the residence of BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan because the address is supposed to be "auspicious"""was unable to explain why at the fag end of the NDA's six-year tenure, the alliance had suddenly thought about preventing persons of foreign origins from holding high office. All that Finance Minister Jaswant Singh would say when asked, was that the ban was "not person-specific". |
| As before, the manifesto had no mention of a common civil code or Article 370, but did talk about ensuring Kashmiri Pandits were able to return to their homes in the Valley. |
| The Prime Minister was at his trenchant best while answering questions. Although he read out an opening statement from a prepared text, he gave enough hints that in the ensuing question and answer session that he was not retiring from the job. "Abhi mere chhodne ka waqt nahin hai (it is not the time for me to leave)," he said in reply to questions. |
| He responded with this when he was asked about his comments in Lucknow that without Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani's nod, he would not have occupied the top slot and his earlier remarks that under Advani's leadership the party wanted to move forward and that the party wanted the leadership to be handed over to the Deputy Prime Minister. |
| He was also asked whether the time had also come for the party leadership to be handed over to Advani and whether there were apprehension that the NDA would not accept Advani's leadership. |
| Vajpayee parried questions on his age and the need for the leadership being handed over to the younger generation. |
| "We will discuss (this) issue later," was all that the 79-year-old Prime Minister said when he was reminded of his own statement made decades ago where he had been critical of the then ageing Prime Minister Charan Singh and had called for the leadership to be handed over to the younger generation. |
| That the NDA had been radicalised to a pale saffron was clear from the manifesto, which had a number of strands from the BJP's pet projects - Banning cow slaughter through central legislation is now part of the NDA agenda, as is the imposition of a two-child norm through non-coercive measures. |
| The NDA believes a commission on the issue of reservation for the poor among the forward classes should be set up. The Prime Minister had earlier said this matter should be decided only after political consensus had been reached. |
| The Prime Minister spent some time explaining why the NDA was committed to bringing about the women's reservation Bill and discussed the several options that the NDA had before it including bringing down the percentage of reservation. |
Explore Business Standard