The BJP yesterday launched a tirade here against Prime Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, blaming him for protecting Laloo Yadav and for ousting CBI chief Joginder Singh. The also asked their cadre to prepare for elections soon.
Gujral has become the target of BJPs attack as party president L K Advanis Swarna Jayanti Rath Yatra reached Lucknow.
The major thrust of Advanis speeches was on corruption and both Gujral and Laloo were brought into it. The thrust of the attack was not so much on Laloo but has shifted to Gujral. Advani said the need was to remove Laloo, but the man who was removed was CBI chief Joginder Singh.
He said instability could affect both Bihar as well as the Centre. In April, the Congress had made an unsuccessful attempt to capture power at the Centre and is likely to make another effort soon.
The party has tried to take on a new image through the Yatra. It is trying to take on the image of a secular party, which stands for unity of all the sections of the society.
The Yatra is trying to give the message of unity through every conceivable method - through speeches, through symbols and by displaying the photographs of national leaders along with those of the BJP.
Advani in his public speech in Lucknow and the press conference said that during the freedom movement there were leaders who differed from each other - Gandhi and Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh and Veer Savarkar, but we should accept the legacy of the movement as an indivisible whole. To buttress this line of thinking the Rath has pictures of Rani Jhansi, Veer Savarkar, Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad and other revolutionaries along with Dr Hedgewar, the founder of the RSS. In the city, large cutouts were installed. They were of Lokmanaya Balgangadhar Tilak, Gandhi, Subhash Bose, Chandra Shekhar Azad, B R Ambedkar, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani.
Both Advani and Vajpayee donned the mantle of statesmen when they appealed both to the Shia and Sunni communities to talk to each other and reach an arrangement, and maintain peace.
Advani said the issue of corruption got marked up due to Laloo Yadavs doings. The main culprit is Gujral. Laloo has his blessings.
Janata Dals strength he said, was in five states and they all have fallen one by one. He said the Patna High court may not have stayed the removal of Joginder Singh, but serving notice to the Centre itself is a damaging indictment. He said the JD had split and it was only a matter of getting it formalised. He said that those parties which are supporting the UF government from outside, Congress and CPI(M) are equally responsible.
In the public meeting the BJP leaders lamented the state of the country despite fifty years of freedom. Vajpayee talked of the pain of partition, of the failure of efforts to convert political independence into economic independence. He said that India was defeated by the British due to petty selfishness and internal rivalry of the countrymen. In the famous battle of Haldighati Maharana Pratap did not have to fight Akbar, but with his own countrymen and his own brethren. In a reference to Shia-Sunni conflict, he had dig at Mayawati, when he said that all are concerned with their own future.
Uma Bharti was the only knee who introduced a discordant not while all others spoke of the countrys problem and presented as party of all people. She, while talking of structure of corruption, said that the way the blot on the country was removed the demolition of the Babri structure similarly, the structure of corruption will also be demolished when the BJP comes to power.
They emphasied the imminence of elections and said that the BJP will come to power. Vajpayee said that things will change only after BJP comes to power at the centre. Advani said that elections may be held much earlier then most people expect.
