BJP to resist 15 per cent budget allocation on communal grounds

Kochi, Jan 13 (UNI) Terming as ''unconstitutional'' the proposal to allocate 15 per cent of the budget for minority communities, BJP President Rajnath Singh today declared his party will strongly oppose any such move by the UPA Government.

Addressing a meeting of the party's Kerala state council here, Mr Rajnath Singh said the BJP would support the government if it provided special facilities for poor people.

However, any move to make special budgetary provisions on the basis of religion would be strongly resisted as this was in total contravention of the Constitution, he added.

Accusing the UPA Government of making such proposals because of ''votebank politics'', the BJP chief said his party stood for ''justice for all and appeasement of none.'' Striking a note of confidence about the party's prospects in the next general elections, Mr Rajnath Singh said the BJP had won assembly elections in four states in 2007 and was now ruling in six states with full majority and in four others in coalition government.

''The public mood indicates that no one can stop the BJP from coming to power at the Centre in the 2009 general elections,'' he added.

Claiming that the Congress was now bereft of the ideology of its founding fathers, Mr Rajnath Singh said while Mahatma Gandhi had envisioned his political ideology in terms of establishing ''Ram Rajya'' in the country, the UPA Government was filing affidavits in the Supreme Court questioning the very existence of Lord Rama.

''The Congress can now lay claim only to the name Gandhi such as in Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi, whereas Mahatma Gandhi's actual work and vision have passed on to the BJP,'' he quipped.

The BJP leader also launched a blistering attack on the CPM-led Left forces in the country, accusing them of functioning ''not on the rule of law, but the rule of terror.'' This was in evidence in Nandigram in West Bengal and in other Left Front ruled states such as Kerala and Tripura in India and in countries such as the erstwhile Soviet Union, China, Vietnam and Latin America, where tens of thousands had been killed in the name of Communism, he said.

Asserting that a revolution can not be brought with the help of violence, he warned the CPM that the BJP cadres in Kerala would give a fitting reply to the culture of political violence unleashed by it against its opponents.

Claiming that Communism had been rejected not only in India but the entire world, the BJP chief said while the CPM's influence was limited to only three states in India, the BJP was now ruling in ten states and was the only party to have transcended the Congress might in the country.

Comparing the states of West Bengal and Gujarat, Mr Rajnath Singh claimed that while 30 years of Marxist rule had only increased poverty and unemployment in the former, the latter was being cited as a ''model state of development'' following the past 15 years of BJP governance.

''It is the CPM which is today practising communalism while the BJP is propounding cultural nationalism,'' he added.

UNI ARC DK1440