Atal, Advani to make room for new leader

Advani regrets House disruption

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) could have a new leader by the time the next general elections come around, senior BJP leader LK Advani has said.

"Quite likely," he said when asked by Karan Thapar during an interview for "Hardtalk India" programme on BBC, whether the BJP would be led by someone other than Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani if the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government completed its five-year term.

When it was pointed out to him that in five years, he and Vajpayee would be 80 and was not it time to offer the younger leadership of the BJP, a bigger role, Advani said the process was already on.

"We have already done so in the election of party office-bearers, in our selection of candidates. Perhaps no other party in the country has been trying to build up a second-rung leadership in the systematic manner in which the BJP has been doing," he said.

But Advani evaded a specific answer when asked who the choice of the leadership of the party would be. "It's (a) long (time away). We do not know when the next election comes. It depends very much on that".

Asked if the party was preparing for not just a generation change but a leadership change and new man at the front, he said it was "quite likely".

In the interview, Advani also admitted to repugnance at the way Parliament had functioned in the last session and said he did not enjoy the strong reactions and disruption of the Houses by his party.

"I would not say I do not regret it. I (do) regret it. But, at the same time, I think that some of the decisions taken by the government were outrageous," Advani said.

"I have no hesitation in that, particularly when I said that Parliament not being able to debate important issues is something I do not relish. On my side, I will certainly try to do so," he said when asked whether he was prepared to let bygones be bygones, and make an extra effort to ensure that Parliament functioned properly when it would be reconvened in November.

Advani repeated a formulation that the BJP leadership had used before"" that Hindutva was just another word for Bharatiyata or Indianness. Maintaining that the vision document released by the BJP in March remained the policy of his party today, Advani said the bjp no longer focussed on the phrase "Hindutva" and was now using alternatives to describe its ideology instead.

Recalling his view expressed during the Bharat Uday Yatra that to rule India a party must be "aggregative" and "inclusive", he said "I stand by that".

More or less referring to the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), he said since the days of the Janata Party government in 1977, he had believed non-Congress governments were more inclusive and aggregative because they represented more people.

In the interview, Advani said he supported dropping the BJP's traditional demand to abrogate Article 370 and underscored the point that a uniform civil code could only be introduced if a political and social consensus evolved in its favour.