'Sonia doesn't understand India'

Advani starts Bharat Uday Yatra

Contrary to the perception that the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership will not take up Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin issue during the forthcoming elections, Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani brought into focus the Congress President's non-Indianness while starting his 33-day Bharat Uday Yatra.

That the Yatra will carry sharp political messages against BJP's opponents was made evident by Advani's scathing attack on the Congress and Sonia Gandhi.

He lauded the achievements of the Vajpayee government and accused the Congress of "wilfully and wantonly destabilising the polity of the country."

Addressing a public meeting in Kanyakumari, before starting the first phase of his "Bharat Uday Yatra", Advani said: "We have been able to take India away from the vortex of instability, uncertainty and relative immobility."

In a clear demonstration of maintaining delicate political balance with his alliance partner-Jaylalithaa's AIADMK- Advani paid tributes to former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MG Ramachandran and described him as a charismatic leader.

Despite highlighting the government's achievements on economic fronts, Advani did not relent his attack on Sonia Gandhi during his journey and dubbed her as someone who "does not understand India and who does not belong to India".

Standing atop his bus on the first leg of his 8000-km yatra, Advani said: "The prospective prime ministerial candidate of the Opposition is a person who does not belong to India and who does not understand India and is even shy to say that she is the Prime Ministerial candidate."

He said between 1988 and 1998 the country saw seven prime ministers and Congress was responsible for it.

"People have to choose between Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who is a great leader and is respected all across the country, and a prospective candidate who has failed to get the support of even the Opposition parties in projecting herself as the next Prime Minister," Advani said in an obvious attempt to highlight the disarray prevailing in the Opposition camp.

He recalled that Nagercoil was the place which had elected Congress leader K Kamaraj and sought people's support to return the sitting BJP MP Pon Radhakrishnan by a bigger margin.

Greeting thousands of people who had gathered on either side of the road in the township, he said: "Go to the polling booths and vote. It is your moral and political obligation and there should not be a single absentee."

Expressing confidence that the NDA would get a renewed mandate from the people for the next five years, he said launching the 8,000-km Yatra was a "unique day in my life".

Earlier, at the start of the Yatra, BJP President M Venkaiah Naidu described it as the "biggest mass contact" programme in the country's history.