BJP promises Ramrajya via villages

Vision document seeks to pacify hardliners

With his characteristic exuberance, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief M Venkaiah Naidu released a 48-page vision document, full of equivocation and rhetoric, but without specifics.

Naidu, flanked by Jaswant Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj Pramod Mahajan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said the party aspired to achieve "Ramrajya" by improving the situation in villages. "The Ramrajya is incomplete without good gram rajya," Naidu said.

The release of vision document on Ram Navmi, probably, was aimed at emphasising the fact that the party had not given up the Ayodhya issue.

While this was a clever move to address the hard-line Hindutva constituency, the BJP leadership also struck a moderate chord by favouring a negotiated settlement of the Ayodhya controversy in an atmosphere of mutual trust and goodwill. "The BJP appeals to the religious and social leaders of Hindu and Muslim communities to speed up the process of dialogue and bring it to an amicable and early fruition," the document says.

The fear that the vision document could upset existing political alignments of the NDA became apparent when Naidu clarified that the BJP's vision document laid down the broad roadmap for the direction in which the party expected the country to go. He said the manifesto drafted by the National democratic Alliance (NDA) would be the guiding principle for all constituents of the NDA, including the BJP. "We have brought out this document to emphasis that the BJP is a party with distinct identity," he remarked.

Though the RSS is learnt to have coerced the BJP to incorporate other contentious issues like Article 370 and uniform civil code in the vision document, the stridency on these issues was considerable toned down in the document.

"The BJP believes that all laws, including personal laws, must be in accordance with the guarantees available to citizens under the Constitution," said the document, which appears quite moderate in the present context. Similarly, the document referred to special status of Jammu and Kashmir as a "temporary and transient" provision and laid emphasis on rooting out terrorism as its first priority.

Referring to the ongoing talks to resolve the Ayodhya issue, Naidu said there was possibility of a new chapter being added to the Hindu-Muslim unity in the country. The party's moderate stance on the contentious issues in the vision document is calculated to dispel the fear of NDA allies that the BJP would set its agenda if it came to power with absolute majority. "Even if the BJP wins absolute majority, the party will abide by the NDA's agenda," Naidu clarified.

Apparently, the emphasis of the vision document is Congress-bashing on issues ranging from defence, internal security, economic issues, social justice and poverty alleviation. "The persistence of abject poverty after more than 50 years of Independence is a result of both misrule and faulty policies followed by the Congress," the document says.

Referring to the BJP's vision of improving the rural economy, Naidu said a second green revolution was needed to increase the farm productivity, achieve crop diversification, reduce waste and add value at every stage in the food chain linking farmers to consumers.

Similarly, the document also promises to make India a global manufacturing hub because of the country's initial successes in pharmaceuticals, automobiles, auto-components and engineering goods. "In the process, we aim to facilitate the creation of global Indian brands and Indian MNCs," it said.

At the same time, the vision document also places India at the centre of the knowledge economy. That the vision document was drafted to please all constituencies before the poll became evident by the highlighting of the Vajpayee government's achievements in creating jobs by initiating infrastructure projects and setting up the project for inter-linking the rivers.

"In effect, the document means everything to everybody," one of those involved in the drafting says. That the party has appropriated icons like Mahatma Gandhi , BR Ambedkar and Ram Manohar Lohia in its vision document is a testimony to the BJP leadership's strategy to come out of the Hindutva groove, particularly in this elections.