BJP targets first time voters

Hyderabad, Aug 30 (UNI) Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) today launched a campaign with an appeal to the first time voters to exerice their franchise judiciously to change the country's future for the better.

Addressing the 'Nava Mata Daata'(first time voters) conference, senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu said the country needed the leadership of L K Advani to stamp out terrorism with an iron hand.

Terrorism posed the biggest threat to the country's advancement, he added.

Accusing the Congress-led UPA Government of ''communalising governance'' and ''fanning caste divisions'', the Rajya Sabha MP alleged that the ruling Congress had ''humiliated the majority community on every possible occasion and manner with its vote bank politics and appeasement of minorities''.

Mr Naidu contended that the series of terror strikes makes one wonder, if India had turned into a soft state where terrorists can strike at will. Blasts had become a regular feature, he added.

He said each time hundreds of people have lost their lives and even more rendered incapable of carrying out daily chores with physical and mental wounds. The fundamentalists were challenging India, as religious places like Tirumala and Srisailam and Nagarjunasagar dams, among others were in their hit list, but the response from the Central Government was revocation of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA).

BJP National Secretary N Indirasena Reddy said the country's future rested on shoulders of the youth.

UNI SM KVV JT CS1942