New Delhi: The BJP, which had sharply attacked President-elect Pratibha Patil during a bitter campaign, today said it considered the sanctity of the country's highest constitutional office to be more important than the person elected to the post.

Senior BJP leader L K Advani made these observations while saying the party would be attending Patil's oath-taking ceremony tomorrow.

The former deputy premier, who had appealed to the UPA to replace Patil as its Presidential candidate, told a meeting of the Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha that his party is a firm believer in the constitutional order and therefore it will "continue to show due respect to the office of the President of India".

At the same time, Advani, who had launched a letter campaign against Patil, said his party was not apologetic about the issues it had raised during the run-up to the presidential election. "They will continue to be as relevant in the time to come as they were before. The outcome of the election does not in the least diminish their importance to India's polity. On the contrary, it has provoked all right-thinking people in the country to seriously debate about a choice made by the leadership of the UPA," he said.