Congress' vote bank politics hurting the country: Advani

Tirupati, Apr 16 (UNI) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L K Advani tonight accused the Congress Party of playing vote bank politics and said it would affect unity and security of the country.

Addressing a huge public meeting at Indira Maidan here, he said just for the sake of votes, the Congress Party has systematically shielded infiltrators from Bangladesh and ''smuggled'' them onto voters' lists in Assam, West Bengal and other states of North-eastern and Eastern India.

Mr Advani said that even after the Supreme Court struck down the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act as unconstitutional, the Congress and Communists have deliberately worked to help the infiltrators.

''After the Supreme Court judgement and warning, the UPA Government is moving heaven and earth to provide another legal protection for Bangladeshi infiltrators by incorporating all the nefarious provisions of the IMDT Act into the Foreigners Act and extend the latter to the whole country,'' he said.

Mr Advani, who completed 1970 kms and covered more than 100 villages besides organising public and road side meetings during his yatra, said the UPA government has no clear and long-range policy on combating naxal insurgency, which, he said, has become on the major threat to India's internal security.

''The UPA government treats the naxal menance as essentially a state issue, to be tackled independently by the affected state and has abandoned the NDA Government's well-conceived strategy to combat the menace with a centralized command structure and with the cooperation of all the affected state governments,'' the Leader of the Opposition in the LOk Sabha said.

Mr Advani also spoke about 4,000 farmers committing suicide in Andhra Pradesh in two years and said this issue would be raised in the next Parliament session.

He also charged the UPA Goverment that by scrapping POTA, it has compromise with terrorism.

Later, Mr Advani proceeded to Tirumala hills where he will worship Lord Balaji tomorrow.

UNI KNR PDS PM0159