Wednesday, April 6 2005 12:44 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president L K Advani today (Apr 6, 2005) sought to win back the party's core 'Hindutva' constituency, reaffirming commitment to "reconstruction" of Ram temple and defending ties with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

Advani, in his presidential address to the special silver jubilee session of BJP's National Council in New Delhi, cited taking the party's "core constituency for granted" as one of the important reasons for debacle in Lok Sabha elections.

Stressing on "consolidation and expansion" of the party in the coming days, he said the biggest challenge would be "speedy revival" in Uttar Pradesh.

BJP would also demand an all-party meeting to discuss the issue of Bangladeshi infiltration, he added.

The BJP Chief charged Congress with "abjuring all faith in democracy, which categorically rejects privileges by birth, and blatantly falling back to feudal and monarchic ways".

"How can a party that does not follow this basic democratic tenet within its own organisation be expected to protect and promote democracy in the country," he said.

Advani, without naming Congress president Sonia Gandhi, said, "Never in the history of independent India, have we seen such deliberate devaluation of the office of the Prime Minister as in the present dispensation".

Though Advani did not mention Sonia's name, in a veiled manner he described her as "super Prime Minister without any accountability to Parliament".

The council meeting, attended among others by National Democratic Alliance (NDA) convener George Fernandes, got off to a start after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee unfurled the party flag in the presence of senior leaders, including party Chief Ministers and State unit Presidents.

Advani said, "Our party's commitment to reconstruction of the Ram temple at the Ram Janambhoomi in Ayodhya remains total, unshakeable and irreversible."

"We continue to believe that a negotiated settlement through dialogue between representatives of Hindu and Muslim communities in an atmosphere of mutual trust, goodwill and accommodation is the most desirable route to solve this long-pending issue," he said and expressed pleasure over "consensus" among NDA partners over this approach.

Defending the party's ties with the RSS, Advani said, "our inflexible stand on our association with the RSS gave us a distinct ideological identity, about which we have never been apologetic, nor will we ever be."

"If anything, (it is) the BJP's identity as the political constituent of wider nationalist movement (which) remains an immensely helpful source of ideological cohesion, organisational unity and political steadfastedness," he said.

Claiming that a much larger constituency of patriotic Indians, outside formal reach of the 'RSS parivar', support the BJP, he said, "We need to incessantly and persistently strengthen our bonds with organisations and individuals in this larger fraternity through mutual dialogue."

Advani referred to a Congress Working Committee Resolution of 1999 - "Hinduism is the most effective guarantor of secularism" - and said UPA Government's "desaffronisation and detoxification campaign, under the malignant influence of the Communists, does not square with this resolution".

"If the Congress is still faithful to this resolution, then all those interested in promoting genuine secularism and protecting India's cultural and civilisation identity can build on this significant point of consensus between the two major political parties in our country," he said.

Expressing serious concern over the "demographic invasion" of India from Bangladesh, Advani said, "Our party views with utmost concern the sudden and rapidly growing religious imbalance in the population of border districts of Assam and West Bengal."

"This is not a natural phenomena, but the direct outcome of a demographic invasion. The BJP fully endorses the warning sounded by non-political experts that rapidly changing religious demography in certain parts of West Bengal, Assam and rest of Northeast, if not immediately checked and reversed, could even lead to another partition of India," he said.

Asserting that BJP viewed the threat of "demographic invasion" as a national issue, he charged the Congress and the Communists with extending a "tacit invitation" to more infiltrators "by enslaving themselves to the politics of minorityism".

"They (Congress and Communists) are deliberately disarming the legal and administrative organs of the Indian State," Advani alleged, demanding immediate repeal of the IMDT Act and convening of an all-party meeting by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to evolve a national consensus on the issue.

The BJP Chief also stressed on an urgent need to have a rethinking on the country's approach to population control and evolve a new strategy to effectively tackle the problem.

"Experience has shown that mere educational and persuasive steps are not sufficient, although they too are required. The country needs radical decisions, including statutory sanctions for incentives and disincentives. Of course, a national consensus will have to be evolved for taking radical decisions," he said.