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Advani likens BJP's birth to Christ's resurrection

Sandesh Prabhudesai in Panjim

Easter, the holy festival of Christians, is significant as well for the Bharatiya Janata Party, which is being targeted for the growing atrocities on the community in the country today.

While BJP president Shashikant 'Kushabhau' Thakre, addressing a public rally in the Goan capital today, said Easter is a holy day for people all over the world, Union Home Minister Lal Kishenchand Advani stunned the crowd by explaining the political significance of the day for his party.

On April 4, 1980, Good Friday, the then Janata Party decided to detach itself from the Jan Sangh component. "It was the day Jesus Christ was crucified while we were also politically crucified on the same day," he recalled. And just as Christ is believed to have been resurrected on Easter Sunday, the BJP, the new avatar of the Jan Sangh, was born on April 6.

Clearly, Advani was trying to win over the minority community, which seems to be developing a hatred for the BJP. The Christians, though only 30 per cent of Goa's total population, are significant politically.

Whether this new dialectic of Advani helps the BJP gaining favour with them, however, will be known only when the assembly election is held at the end of May.

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