Advani criticises UPA on religion reservations

Bangalore, Nov 19: Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani today came down heavily on the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government headed by Manmohan Singh for its 'meek and weak' attitude in dealing with terrorism, a great threat to the country's internal security.

Addressing a mammoth rally at the National Security Pledge Convention here, he said that it was a shame that the UPA government had soft peddled its attitude towards curbing terrorism in the country.

Most of the political parties in the country including the Congress and Communist had kept eye on the vote banks and hence their attitude towards taking on terrorism was not effective, he observed saying that there should be zero tolerance towards such anti human activities. Unfortunately the political parties exhibited this absurdity and pseudo secularism keeping in view the vote banks during the elections, he rued.

He believed that terrorism implied a continuous proxy war held in a systematic manner which should be firmly dealt with. But the Singh government had announced that there would be joint mechanism by both India and Pakistan to fight terrorism. Unfortunately Dr Singh had become the first Prime Minister to go on record that even Pakistan had become a victim of terrorism when the whole world was told that the country nurtured terrorism, he remarked.

He referred to capital punishment ordered by the Supreme Court on Afzalguru in connection with the terrorist attack on the Parliament in 2001 and said it was a brazen attack on a symbol of Indian sovereignty and democracy. It was also a murderous attack on the top leadership of the entire Indian political establishment cutting across the party lines. Paradoxically, the leaders and MPs of many of the parties that were overtly or covertly supporting the clemency for Afzal were also targets of that attack, he recalled.

Mr Advani felt that India could never be safe in the hands of those who were afraid of taking a firm and principled stand against enemies of the nation, who left nobody in doubt about their diabolical plan on that day of attack. By defending Afzal, these self serving politicians were nullifying the supreme sacrifice made by over a dozen security personnel on December 13, he added.

He also called upon the people to write post cards, send EMS and telegrams to the Prime Minister seeking capital punishment to Afzal immediately.

On Pakistan involvement in terrorism, he said terrorist attacks in last three years showed that Pakistan had not lived up to its commitment, made in the Vajpayee-Musharraf joint statement in Islamabad in January 2004, that it would not allow Pak or Pak controlled territory to be used for terrorist activities aimed against India. He also recalled the Agra meet between Vajpayee and Musharraf where the latter left the country in a huff on being insisted by the Indian Prime Minister to explain Pakistan stand on terrorism in the draft statement. The Vajpayee government had then insisted on this issue and made its stand very clear to the visiting Pakistan President, he added.

He clarified that his party was never against any particular religion including Islam. However, it was necessary to make everyone, including the Muslims, aware of how the name of Islam was being misused to destroy India's unity and integrity and in a manner that created a bad image about Islam and the Muslim community.

Muslim community people should open more educational institutions to give education to their children and beware of those middlemen who had an eye on their vote banks, he cautioned.

Stating that Dr Singh government's attempting to introduce religion based reservations based on the Sachar Committee recommendations, he said that the BJP would oppose any such move tooth and nail.

UNI

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