The Hindu : National : BJP plans five-month long `ideological war'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Sep 10, 2004

National

National

BJP plans five-month long `ideological war'

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, SEPT. 9. For five months from September 25 to February 11 next year, the Bharatiya Janata Party will wage an "ideological war" at the grassroots guiding its cadre on taking forward the party's commitment to its ideology and principles.

The programme will run alongside the already declared programme of dharna and protest by MPs and MLAs at Port Blair on September 21, to be led by Sushma Swaraj, and to focus on the Savarkar plaque issue and the `tiranga (Tricolour) yatra' by the former Madhya Pradesh Chief minister, Uma Bharti. The programme focussing on the "ideological orientation" of its cadre flows from the decisions taken at the "chintan baithak" (brainstorming session) in Goa. The party will give a "wider meaning to nationalism as an ideology" and reorient its cadre to recast Hindutva issues as "nationalist" issues. The emphasis on the Tricolour yatra by Ms. Bharti seems to be part of that larger design.

Announcing the programme today, the vice-president and spokesperson of the BJP, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, said the idea was to strengthen the party at the base with a "focus on orientation and renewed emphasis on work culture, individual conduct and organisation discipline." The attempt would be "to restore [the] primacy of ideology" at all levels.

The issues were an "alarming rise of jehadi terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir''; the population explosion, especially the problem of "infiltration" (from Bangladesh); the threat of repeal of the Prevention of Terrorism Act held out by the Manmohan Singh Government; and "communal reservation" for Muslims. The so-called "insult to the national flag" when Ms. Bharati was not allowed to raise it in Hubli 10 years ago and the Savarkar plaque issue are also to be moulded in the newly named "nationalist" ideology.

Mr. Naqvi was asked whether the old Jana Sangh had not resisted or even opposed the adoption of the Tricolour as the national flag and whether the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had not refused to accept it till Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel forced it to do so by placing this as a condition for lifting the ban imposed on the organisation in 1948. He said that at that time many parties had put forth different views on what flag to adopt as the national flag.

He said that throughout its campaigns the party would aggressively raise the issue of "tainted" Ministers who should resign.

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