Ram bhakts give Advani jitters

If the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had hoped that the voter in the Telangana and Vidarbha areas might support it in the Lok Sabha elections, it need to think again.

Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani's sojourn in both areas was glaringly unsatisfactory""more so because his Bharat Uday Yatra had a rousing response in Karnataka, days before the cavalcade reached Nagpur.

The reception accorded to him at Nagpur could have been better. Bajrang Dal activists interrupted his public meeting at the historic Chitnis Park raising the ghost of Ayodhya.

If that was not enough, everybody wanted to know why the BJP had forgotten its promise on separate statehood for Vidarbha.

A visibly unsettled BJP Loh Purush was, for the first time in his "yatra", rendered speechless in the city of the birth of the Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh as boisterous chants of "Ramlala ke vaste, khule kar do raste" and "Lathi goli khayenge mandir wahin banayenge" rent the air.

Advani, who had championed the temple cause with a watershed Somnath to Ayodhya Rath Yatra in 1990, fell silent when Bajrang Dal activists raised the slogans during his public meeting.

The unexpected sloganeering on an issue that had once helped Advani effect a political coup of sorts, simply broke his rhythm of speech.

The deputy prime minister who, hours earlier at Yavatmal, had elaborated on his vision of a developed India by 2020 and later asked for a decisive mandate for the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at Wardha, struggled to explain why the Ram temple was not an issue any more.

Advani said the Ram temple in Ayodhya was not a wish of a group of people but a national aspiration.

"The issue is dear to us, but we do not want to link it with the election campaign," the deputy prime minister said trying to pacify the Bajrang Dal activists.

"The NDA government has succeeded in evolving an atmosphere of broad consensus on the contentious issue during its rule. If voted to power again, we will find an amicable solution to this impasse," he said.

He also called for maintaining the ambience of "good will" with the minority community. "So many Muslims are joining the BJP, do not vitiate the atmosphere," he said apparently referring to the restive Bajrang Dal members.

The magic, however, was gone and though the Bajrang Dal activists remained quiet, the deputy prime minister could not infuse life in the public rally that was supposed to set off the election campaign of BJP-Shiv Sena alliance candidates from Nagpur and Ramtek seats.

Much to the embarrassment of the BJP-Sena leaders on the dais, people started leaving the stadium even as Advani was speaking.

Talking to reporters before leaving for MP, Advani faced a volley of questions on the Vidarbha issue.

"Separate states for Vidarbha and Telangana are not on the NDA's agenda," he said and also made it clear that the BJP would not take any initiative to build a consensus on the issue of Vidarbha, which has been on the BJP agenda since 1993.

The BJP had unanimously adopted a resolution in favour of Vidarbha state at its Bhubaneshwar national executive meeting in 1993 and even fought and won the Assembly elections here in 1995 on that demand. Advani clearly was at pains explaining that the Sena, a coalition partner, was not in favour of Vidarbha state.

George Fernandes, defence minister and NDA convener, Uddhav Thackeray, executive president of the Shiv Sena, Sharad Joshi, Shetkari Sangathan founder, Gopinath Munde, BJP state unit chief, Nitin Gadkari, leader of the Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Council, and BJP-Sena candidates from Nagpur and Ramtek Lok Sabha constituencies, Atal Bahadur Singh and Subodh Mohite-Patil, respectively, were present on the dais.