Let Modi lead, VHP tells Vajpayee

No point in waiting for a legal settlement of Ayodhya tangle: Parishad

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) yesterday added to the Sangh Parivar's woes by suggesting in no uncertain terms that the two top Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders""Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani""retire to make way for younger, more dynamic leaders like Narendra Modi.

VHP leader Ashok Singhal, addressing a press conference with the whole battery of VHP leaders including Pravin Togadia, launched a less than polite, scathing diatribe against the BJP's top leadership here yesterday.

They said the general elections were fought under the leadership of Advani and Vajpayee,who left no stone unturned to seek Muslim endorsement of their regime. It was under the leadership of the two leaders that the BJP lost the elections. Therefore, they should own responsibility and make way for younger people.

"The BJP, under their (Advani and Vajpayee's) leadership, kept on abandoning the interests of the Hindus and launched programmes to make itself more acceptable to the Muslims.

"The party got Muslim religious leaders to issue fatwas in their favour. They have now proved that they are the original Congress. So people voted for the Congress and rejected them as poor photocopies," VHP leaders said in the bitterest attack on a sister organisation yet.

They also criticised former National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra.

VHP leaders said there was no point in waiting for a legal settlement of the Ayodhya issue""that a temple existed in Ayodhya was an irrefutable fact.

So the leaders demanded that a law be enacted to build a temple where the mosque had existed and asked members of Parliament, who believed in Ram, to come out and support the legislation.

They said Modi had their full support. "He is a popular leader. His performance in Gujarat has been much better than the BJP's elsewhere.  The BJP won three states in 2003 Assembly elections because of efforts made by him. It would be brave on the part of Advani and Vajpayee to accept this truth," the VHP said.

No reaction was forthcoming from BJP leaders, still licking their wounds after the electoral defeat. But in the blame game that has now started between Vajpayee on the one hand and the rest of the party on the other suggests that the defeat has hit the Sangh Parivar hard.

A public catharsis of the kind that is taking place now is usually reserved for party fora. What the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh hopes to achieve politically from this public trading of charges is hard to understand.

What it does indicate is that the BJP could be drifting towards its back-to-saffron-basics roots, beginning to put distance between itself and its allies and possibly the start of the unravelling of the experiment that was the National Democratic Alliance.

Discounting the VHP outburst, Modi-baiters in Gujarat welcomed Vajpayee's remarks. Vajpayee's remarks showed that the party still had some sense of political ethics and values and the writing on the wall for Modi was clearer than ever, said a BJP legislator.

"Though party chief M Venkaiah Naidu has ruled out any change of guards in Gujarat, but he would have to bow to the demand of other senior BJP leaders during the Mumbai meet," he said.

Kashiram Rana, former Union textiles minister and a strong contender for the chief ministership said that remarks of VHP leaders were not in good taste.

"The change is certain and the only issue is who will be the next chief minister," said a local VHP leader. Besides, Rana, names of Harin Pathak, Vallabhbhai Kathiria and Suresh Mehta, former chief minister, is being discussed in the political circles as possible replacements.