Bangalore: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president M Venkaiah Naidu today (Mar 10, 2004) ridiculed suggestions that there was "politics" behind the "Bharat Uday" yatra of Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani to project him.

"I pity and sympathise with those people (who project it so)," Naidu told reporters in Bangalore shortly after he flagged off the 8,000 km long yatra from Kanyakumari.

Naidu, who was asked if there was "politics" behind the yatra to project Advani, said "at his age" Advani was going round the country in "hot summer" asking the people to vote back Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to power.

"All the leaders are campaigning for Vajpayee. That is the politics of BJP," he said.

Naidu also made it clear that it was not a "rath yatra. Only a bus yatra. (We have) not used the name rath" and advised the media also to exclude the word "rath".

Asked who would take the responsibility if violence broke out as a result of the "yatra", Naidu said, "No violence will take place. Nothing, nothing, nothing will happen."

The campaign, he asserted, would galvanise the mood of the people in favour of the BJP and National Democratic Alliance (NDA) into a "wave".

Asked about a spate of Congress leaders joining the BJP and if it would not dilute the party's "basic commitment" with the "Congress culture" creeping in, he said, "They are coming themselves, leaving the culture in Congress."

The new entrants, he said, knew that they had to "digest" the BJP culture and therefore, there "is no question of adopting the Congress culture in BJP".