Vajpayee calls for poll reforms

BJP to accord top priority to river interlinking if voted to power

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said on Friday that there is a need to take a relook at the present election system in the country and that if voted back to power, BJP will take up poll reforms as one of the top priorities.

Vajpayee, who addressed a public meeting late on Friday evening in Ahmedabad, said that the world is watching Indian democracy and if excessive money, muscle power and other illegal means were used to win elections, then India is still not a democracy in the true sense of the word.

"When I first contested elections in 1957, it was a simple affair. The process was clean. Today the situation has changed drastically. L K Advani had proposed poll reforms to a certain level and we will like to bring about poll reforms in the country," Vajpayee told a gathering at the Sardar Patel stadium in Ahmedabad.

Without naming any particular case (there have been two crucial Supreme Court verdicts concerning Gujarat in the past week), Vajpayee said: "One does not really know which matters will go to courts. Even those matters which do not need to go to court, end up in courts. I am not criticising the judiciary, for which I have a high respect. The judiciary has a key role to play in a democracy," he said.

Seeking votes for L K Advani, who is contesting the Gandhinagar seat, Vajpayee said the Gandhinagar seat is one of the safest seat for the BJP.

"Many years ago when I was apprehensive of winning from any other seat, people in the party asked me to contest the Gandhinagar seat," he said. Vajpayee had a special mention for the cricket spectators in Pakistan, whom he said "showed exemplary attitude".

"It is difficult to digest defeat, but that is not so in a game. That is what sportsmanship is all about," he said.

He congratulated Advani for embarking on three nationwide yatras so far and Narendra Modi for the SC judgement quashing the petition against increasing the Narmada dam height.

Earlier L K Advani said immediately after the elections, the BJP government will accord top priority to the interlinking of rivers.

"We have already completed all ground work for the project and all states concerned have also agreed to cooperate," he said.

Modi thanked Vajpayee for sanctioning the Rs 6,000 crore Sujalam Sufalam project, giving the green signal to the 2000 mw power project of the state government in collaboration with NTPC, helping in raising the Narmada dam height and sorting out the crude royalty issue.

"I assure you the BJP will bag all the 26 seats in Gujarat," he said.