The BJP began gearing up for emerging a “clear winner” in the next Lok Sabha elections, with senior leader LK Advani coining the slogan Jeetega BJP, Jeetega India.
NEW DELHI: Buoyed by a series of assembly poll wins, including in Karnataka, the BJP began gearing up on Monday for emerging a “clear winner” in the next Lok Sabha elections, with senior leader LK Advani coining the slogan Jeetega BJP, Jeetega India.
“Once the BJP is seen as a clear winner, it is bound to have a positive effect on the size and strength of the NDA. We can expect....we are indeed confident.... that more parties will join our alliance,” said Advani, the NDA’s prime ministerial candidate.
Advani, who has often exhorted party men to have the killer instinct, told the party’s national executive that the expansion, stability and cohesion of the NDA “depends on our ability to attract and retain allies who may not be ideologically aligned with the BJP on all issues”.
His comments concluding the two-day executive were in contrast to party chief Rajnath Singh’s attempt on Sunday to bring back on the saffron agenda the contentious demands for scrapping Article 370 and the uniform civil code.
“Let us resolve...not to waste a single day, not to ignore a single task, and not to neglect a single winnable seat in order to achieve our goal of securing a decisive majority for the NDA with the BJP emerging as a strong and unshakable anchor of our alliance,” Advani said.
Upbeat after the Karnataka victory, the national executive deliberated on the party’s preparations for the next Lok Sabha elections and asked state units to forward lists of probable candidate by this month end.
The Jeetega BJP, Jeetaga Bharat (victory for BJP, victory for India) slogan is a rejig of the Jeetega Gujarat mantra that powered Narendra Modi to a third straight win last December.
Earlier, releasing the party’s resolution on foreign policy, senior leader and former foreign minister Jaswant Singh blasted the UPA government’s manner of engaging countries such as Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh, China and Russia.
He said the government erred in praising the result of the Nepal polls as the Maoist rule in the neighbourhood was a threat to India. “Nepal coming under Communist rule is not in India’s interest,” Jaswant said.
The resolution asked the government to clarify where it stood on the many questions that Nepal was now confronted with and took a dig at prime minister Manmohan Singh, wondering whether he was not a “free agent” in this context as well.
“It is an established fact that the Maoists in India have links with the Nepal Maoists and this is likely to have serious consequences for India,” Jaswant said.
The resolution welcomed the return of democracy in Pakistan but expressed concern over last month’s firing from across the LoC in the Samba sector of Jammu and Pakistan’s “support” to terrorism.
When external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee visited Islamabad last month, he should have reminded Pakistan of the January 6, 2004, joint statement in which Pakistan pledged not to allow any terror activities against India on its soil, Jaswant said.
He said terrorists were now receiving shelter in Bangladesh, which was “the new epicentre of terrorism”.
On the India-US nuclear deal, the BJP asked the Congress to take a clear stand instead of blaming others.
s_rajesh@dnaindia.net
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