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We are on probation, Advani tells BJP

Bharatiya Janata Party president Lal Kishinchand Advani today admitted that the ''fractured'' nature of the mandate clearly means the party has not yet ''fully won'' the confidence of the people.

Therefore, he urged party workers to reach out organisationally to newer areas, both geographically as well as socially. He was addressing the BJP national executive in Gandhinagar, the first since the party formed the government at the Centre.

"As things stand, one can even say the people have put us on probation in our new job," he said, and added that the first and foremost imperative of national interest is good governance. ''The extent to which we follow and implement the ideals of good governance is the extent to which we would have provided a testimony to our faith in nationalism,'' he added.

The party's national council meeting will begin on Sunday with newly-elected party president Kushabhau Thakre assuming charge from Advani and delivering the presidential address. Prime Minister A B Vajpayee was among those present at the executive meeting.

The council will later start deliberations on draft political resolution. The discussions would focus on challenges before the party and the country and need to provide good governance.

A pre-summary report will also be presented to the council by the party's general secretaries on the BJP's performance during the past four years, M Venkaiah Naidu said.

Referring to the experience of being in power for six weeks, Advani said it was sufficient reminder of an extremely challenging situation. ''Usually a new government is granted a honeymoon. We have had no such luxury. As a matter of fact, it has been a period of much pain.''

The national executive is being attended by 123 of its 145 members. Among the absentees were the chief ministers of Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, Bhairon Singh Shekawat and Kalyan Singh respectively, and Rajmata Vijayraje Scindia who is ill.

According to Advani, the BJP has to focus its attention on four major areas if it was to consolidate itself as the natural party of governance.

''The BJP must enhance its governance capabilities, which are different from political capabilities. We are called upon not only to clean up the mess created by the misrules of the past Congress and quasi-Congress regimes, but, even more important, to reorient and restructure governance to our exalted vision of nationalism.''

''This means that all those of us who are entrusted with responsibilities in central or state governments must spend more and more of our time dealing with governance issues. Rather the political issues -- and, much less, the issues arising out of petty and ugly politicking. Simultaneously, we must train younger and newer people in the party in various governance-related tasks. The series of training camps we started last year have to be accordingly re-oriented,'' he explained.

Secondly, for a political party wishing to expand and consolidate its support base, there is simply no substitute to close, constant and organic contact with the masses. If this is true for a party in the opposition, it is even more true for a party in governance, he underlined.

In this connection, the BJP has prepared an action plan to woo minorities, Dalits and other social groups to expand its base.

The action plan, which was discussed at the executive meeting today, was given final touches and will be put up before the national council for adoption tomorrow.

The action plan was proposed by outgoing president Advani to be included in the political resolution.

''The BJP cannot depend on the bureaucracy or the media to communicate the government's policies and programmes to the people. Nor can we depend on them to communicate the people's problems and issues to the government. It is only the party organisation which can perform this vital function of being the two-way link between the people and the government," Advani added.

He advised the executive to ''deepen and widen'' its horizon of concerns as the world was changing in a very positive direction. ''Therefore, the BJP must tap the youthful reservoir of dynamism of our dreaming young people in order to constantly renew itself. In particular, we must attract more and more educated, skilled professionals of various disciplines into the party and give them specific responsibilities.''

He cautioned the policy makers of the party about power corrupting even the most committed and well-organised parties. ''We have seen what has happened to political parties in our country, including the once-great Congress party. A party that lets itself be overwhelmed by the trappings of power inevitably loses its direction and sense of purpose. Such a party cannot remain cohesive for long, much less can it handle the historic task of delivering good government.''

He was happy to note that the BJP has so far remained largely immune to this problem of corruption. ''But we cannot be complacent. It is necessary to constantly remind ourselves that ideology and idealism cannot be separated. Without high idealism, ideology is hollow, and without sound ideology, idealism is a non-starter," he emphasised.

Advani called upon the executive to consciously exert itself to preserve the combination of a sound ideology and high idealism, which is the very birthmark of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party. This alone can erase the image of the 'ugly Indian politician' which is prevalent among the common people, he said.

Referring to the emergence of the BJS and then BJP, Advani said unlike many political parties which were ''refashioned out of prefabricated ideas and structures,'' the Jana Sangh and its ideological reincarnation, the BJP, organically evolved over time to become a harmonious, strong and vibrant national force, and now the BJP is not just the head of a coalition government at the Centre, it is the most central idea of Indian polity today.

Looking back on his years as party president, Advani said if electoral performance is one indicator of a political party's movement in a democracy, then the BJP has moved from the lowest point in its performance graph in 1984 to the highest point in 1998. ''This is a point of immense gratification for all of us. The primary reason for our extraordinary growth is the unique blend of ideology and idealism that sets the BJP apart from the rest of the political parties.''

He said the BJP has grown because the ideology of nationalism to which ''we are wedded is predestined to triumph". ''We have shown our fidelity to the ideology of nationalism at every turn in our political journey,'' he told the gathering.

Welcoming Thakre as the new president, Advani said the party is grateful to him for shouldering the responsibility at a critical period. ''Indeed, we cannot find a more dedicated, selfless and unassuming individual among us than Thakreji,'' he added.

Talking to the press later, Advani said he did not see any pressure from All India Anna DMK leader Jayalalitha to pull down the BJP government. Asked about Commerce Minister Ramakrishna Hegde's reply to Vajpayee's letter to him asking for the status of the cases against him, Advani pleaded ignorance about its contents.

When presspersons queried him as to its compromise with ideals by aligning with the Himachal Vikas Congress's Sukh Ram, who is being prosecuted by the Central Bureau of Investigation in a corruption case, Advani said there was no compromise. "I don't regard it as compromise, that word means doing something wrong. A political party, when it aligns with another party, does not agree to the other party completely, but only to 60 per cent of the views of its partner. So, I won't call it a compromise."

Asked about the Shiv Sena disrupting a concert by Pakistani artiste Ghulam Ali in Bombay recently, and the attack by Bajrang Dal on painter M F Husain's house on Friday, the Union home minister said, "I feel strongly about every manifestation of intolerance to a different point of view, I will not be happy about it. As far as Ghulam Ali is concerned, I have spoken to the Maharashtra chief minister about it. But the Husain incident, I have only read about it in newspapers."

About the party's freezing of the Ayodhya issue, Advani said, "The BJP-led government is ready to hold it back for the sake of the national agenda. But that does not mean I have become apologetic about what I believed in all my life." In this connection, he mentioned that the BJP has shifted from being accepted as an Opposition party by the people, to a party of governance.

UNI, with additional reportage by Syed Firdaus Ashraf in Gandhinagar

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