Bjp Bid To Upstage Cong On Its Claim To Freedom Struggle

The BJP yesterday tried to project itself as the true inheritor of Indias freedom movement and pooh-poohed the Congresss claim to the nationalist platform. The BJPs strategy is to debunk the Congress and try to take its place as the inheritor of the independence movement.

The strategy was formulated earlier, but given shape at the meeting of the partys four general secretaries yesterday. K N Govindacharya, Pramod Mahajan, M Vekaiah Naidu and Sushma Swaraj attended.

The party decided to try to cash in on party president LK Advanis rath yatra of 21 states, which concluded at the Red Fort grounds yesterday.

There is talk in party circles of projecting Advani as another Mahatma Gandhi. BJP leaders are vying with each other to eulogise Advani with new epithets.

The Swarna Jayanti Rath Yatra has firmly established the BJP as the true inheritor of the legacy of Indias freedom movement as also the chief architect of national reconstruction, the four general secretaries claimed in a press release.

The BJP is being increasingly seen as the only ray of hope in the darkening political sky, it claimed, noting that the goodwill and support for the BJP owed in no small measure to the murky and manipulative politicking in the Congress and the United Front camps.

The general secretaries claimed that Advanis yatra put a question mark on the Congress nationalistic claims.

While Advani carried on the message of independence days golden jubilee year, the Congress was busy in setting its house in order.

While Naidu claimed that the yatra had turned the older generation the traditional Congress supporters towards the BJP. Govindacharya claimed that the yatra attracted the youth.

Pramod Mahajan compared the yatra with Advanis Ram rath yatra in 1990 and claimed that in some places the Swarna Jayanti Rath Yatra had a better response. He said Advani has emerged as a saint in Indian politics.