Prez poll: BJP to launch mass awakening campaign

New Delhi, June 26: Appealing to the UPA's constituents to reconsider their decision of fielding a '' tainted'' person as their Presidential candidate, the BJP today decided to launch a mass awareness campaign to educate electors on what was at stake in the July 19 election.

Addressing the party's national executive here, Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha L K Advani also called upon the UPA MPs and MLAs to vote according to their conscience.

Justifying the decision, Mr Advani said that BJP and NDA on several occasions had gone to the Rashtrapati Bhavan to seek action against tainted Ministers in the ruling coalition. '' But what if Rashtrapati Bhavan itself gets a tainted occupant?,'' he asked, adding this is the question which the nation must ponder over.

Also defending his call for '' Conscience Vote,'' the BJP leader recounted that Mrs Indira Gandhi had issued the same call during the Presidential election in 1969 '' to strengthen the hands of one individual within the then ruling party.'' What this strengthening '' one individual'' led to, the nation discovered in 1975 when Emergency rule was clamped on the country, he said.

But, he said, their call for '' Conscience Vote '' was aimed at safeguarding certain ''basic ideals of our national life, to save Rashtrapati Bhavan from being devalued in the manner in which the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had been devalued three years ago.'' Mr Advani said unlike the previous Presidential elections, people were keenly watching this election and it was the party's duty to make them aware of major issues involved in it.

Reacting to the UPA's charge that recent ''revelations'' about Mrs Pratibha Patil was a smear campaign launched against her by the NDA, Mr Advani said none of the fora where allegations against her have been made ''has any vested interest in maligning her image.'' He asked what interests the Reserve Bank or the Bombay High Court or for that matter the widow of a murdered Congress leader or various televison news channels ''could have in making such adverse disclosures?'' He maintained that Mrs Patil has been chosen not only on account of her loyalty to ''the ruling family'' but also because of her ''vulnerability.'' He further said never in the past six decades any candidate for the highest constitutional office had faced such ''grave allegations. One of the allegations pertains to protection of criminalisation of politics. This allegation has been implicitly endorsed by the High Court,'' he asserted.

Explaining the dangers inherent in ''a pliant President,'' the BJP leader reminded what Dr Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed had done in 1975 by signing the Emergency Proclamation without enquiring from then Prime Minister if the decision had been taken by her Cabinet. ''And all this happened ..... because the then Rashtrapati was a man who was loyal not to the Constitution but to an individual.''

UNI