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Saffron Advani now in secular hardsell

The BJP plans to make yet another attempt to woo Muslims and sell the NDA prime ministerial candidate LK Advani’s leadership to them.

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NEW DELHI: The BJP plans to make yet another attempt to woo Muslims and sell the NDA prime ministerial candidate LK Advani’s leadership to them.

The party’s minority cell national executive will have a three-day meet in Hyderabad, beginning from Friday. Minority cell president Shahnawaz Husain said they would appeal to the Muslims to forget their misgivings about Advani and “make a new beginning” by supporting the BJP under the leadership of Advani. The meeting would adopt a resolution to this effect.

The BJP also intended to use the Sachar Committee report against the Congress by “showing Muslims what their plight was after so many years of Congress rule in the country”. “BJP is no longer untouchable for Muslims and they will have no problems under Advani’s leadership,” said Hussain.

The move is another effort in the exercise of a makeover of Advani’s image and profile and shed the tag of a ‘hardliner’. His efforts, however, have often resulted in ideological confusion.

Vishwa Hindu Parishad international president Ashok Singhal said on Thursday that Advani has not yet cleared the air over his statement on Jinnah. He, however, did not respond to a question about how he viewed the BJP’s efforts to hardsell Advani to Muslims.

On the other hand, BJP’s past efforts to win over Muslims have flopped, even with Atal Behari Vajpayee as the leader. Some feel that such overt appeals to Muslims to forget the past could be seen as an admission of guilt. Giving a clean chit to Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in 2002 riots is not going to help matters either and Hussain evaded a reply to a query on whether Modi would be among the invitees to the minority cell meet.

Advani has recently been speaking the language of a statesman, and his autobiography has tried to present him as a believer in justice for all.
s_rajesh@dnaindia.net
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