Saturday, March 12 2005 22:19 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) president L K Advani today (March 12, 2005) said the issue of Congress President Sonia Gandhi's foreign origin continued to remain an issue "in politics, in my mind and heart".

The Leader of Opposition also asserted that the Congress should not "annoy" the BJP if it expected cooperation from it in passing crucial legislations in the Parliament.

Maintaining there was no evolution of thought on the foreign origin issue, he said, "It is an approach. I don't think there is anything wrong about it and it strikes a chord in the minds of the common man."

"How can you have, in a country of so many crores, a person of foreign origin as your leader only because the person is married in a certain family? It's an issue in politics, in my mind and heart", he said in an interview on the 'Walk the Talk' programme on NDTV.

The BJP Chief recalled that if any party had split on the issue, it was the Congress "though compulsions of politics may have made them compromise". "Therefore, I respect a person like Sangma."

Advani said unlike the Congress which saw the BJP as an "evil", he did not see either the Congress or the Gandhi family as an evil.

"But this conception that the Gandhi family alone is fit to rule the country is basically undemocratic. It is totally unacceptable to any democrat. I am surprised that the Congress has readily accepted it. The manner in which the change of Congress president-ship took place would shock any decent person. How can you physically change a party president? Why there is no protest?" he asked.

Advani said Congress and BJP were not "talking sufficiently" and "much more is required".

In this regard, he said the Congress was lately talking to it on the Value Added Tax (VAT) regime and there was a tendency to make all BJP-ruled States comply with that, "the day they did Goa, there was hue and cry" in the party, he added.

The BJP Chief said his party had no problem in cooperating with the Government in passing legislations, which were in the country's interest and the party will consider every issue on its merit.

"Simply because we are in the Opposition, you have to oppose everything Government does is not a right approach though in order to see that this thinking gets full support of the party also, you also have to behave in a manner which does not annoy the party", he said.

"I am worried at the Congress party's attitude towards BJP. They are evil, that's the approach. Yet it's the Opposition, they have to tolerate it", he said.

Advani said he was in favour of fixed term for legislatures as was the situation in Europe and that he had spoken a couple of months back with Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee in this regard. "I said now it will be to your advantage and you do it", he said.

The former Deputy Prime Minister said he was not worried at the small parties emerging as a threat to stability. "It's a process of change. From a dominant one party set up to a bipolar polity has been a progress", he said.

Advani also charged Congress with trying to utilise its alliances with it to "encroach into the domain of regional parties".