Statement issued by Shri L.K. Advani, Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha) At a press conference in Calicut (Kerala) : April 18, 2006

Kerala and India are paying a heavy price due to the opportunistic and unprincipled alliance between the Congress and Communists

Taking a break from my Bharat Suraksha Yatra, I have come to Kerala to participate in the BJP’s campaign in the forthcoming elections to the Kerala legislative assembly. I have addressed two meetings yesterday in Kasargod and Calicut.

My visit has further reinforced my conviction that this beautiful state of Kerala, although enviously well-endowed by Mother Nature, is cursed by the two communal, corrupt, self-serving and thoroughly incompetent political fronts – the Congress-led UDF and the CPI(M)-led LDF. The people of Kerala have both a duty and an opportunity to liberate their state from the vice-like grip of these two fronts, which are indeed an affront to the canons of Good Governance and Principled Politics.

I urge the enlightened electorate to use the forthcoming elections as an opportunity to quench their own thirst for a progressive new political alternative. The alternative will probably not materialize in the 2006 assembly elections. But I am confident that the 2006 elections will mark a breakthrough with the BJP’s entry in the Kerala assembly.

I solemnly assure the people of Kerala that the BJP will play the role of a vigilant monitor and a useful pressure group in the new assembly. The BJP will see to it that never again will the Kerala assembly be subjected to the infamy of the Congress and the Communists joining hands to pass a unanimous resolution for the release of a dreaded terrorist. The BJP will see to it that, no matter which front forms the government this time, there will be a genuine and principled voice of opposition in the assembly. It is for this reason that I reiterate my appeal to the electorate of Kerala: Ensure the victory of a maximum number of BJP candidates, beginning with my senior colleague Shri O. Rajgopal from Palakkad.

My appeal is directed at voters belonging to all the castes and communities that form the plural society of Kerala. I especially urge my brethren belonging to the Muslim and Christian communities not to fall prey to the false and motivated propaganda of our adversaries that the BJP is anti-minorities. Indeed, it is the Congress and the Communists who are hurting both the minorities and the cause of national integration by their competitive politics of minorityism.

My attention has been drawn to an interview by Shri Prakash Karat, general secretary of the CPI(M), in the latest issue of The Week magazine. He has rejected Congress president Sonia Gandhi's charge that Left parties are communalizing India's foreign policy. He has also commented that Shrimati Sonia Gandhi’s allegation was "failure" to justify the Centre's "pro-US" orientation.

Such allegations and counter-allegations between the two principal constituents of the UPA show the extreme brittleness of the ruling alliance at the Centre. They also expose how the leadership of both the Congress and the CPI(M) are unprincipled and hypocritical in their respective stands.

First of all, if Shrimati Sonia Gandhi is genuinely concerned about “communalization of India’s foreign policy”, why is her party relentlessly communalizing India’s domestic policy? Examples of the latter are aplenty: Muslim headcount in the Armed Forces; the temptation to push religion-based reservations in state after state; contempt of the Supreme Court by bringing in IMDT through the backdoor in Assam and thereby aiding the continuing demographic aggression from Bangladesh (which, if unchecked, could lead to India’s dismemberment in the North-East); and unanimous resolution in the Kerala assembly for the release of Abdul Nasir Madani, the prime accused in the Coimbatore serial bomb blasts in 1998, in which 58 innocent persons were killed.

On the other hand, I find Shri Karat’s self-justification on the issue of communalization of India’s foreign policy both dangerous and disingenuous. He has said that there was nothing wrong in Muslims worldwide “being concerned about how the Bush administration is acting”. I fail to understand how a self-styled secular party in India can tailor its own foreign policy on the basis of how a particular community might be reacting to the Bush administration’s conduct.

The American administration’s attack on Iraq was indeed condemnable – but not because Iraq is a Muslim country or that Muslims around the world were agitated over it. Indeed, it was condemned by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. During the NDA regime, the Indian Parliament had unanimously deplored the US action. When Washington put pressure on India to send its troops to Iraq to fight side by side with the US-led forces, the Vajpayee government stoutly refused.

The CPI(M)’s conduct, however, was of a decidedly anti-secular kind. It exploited the anti-cartoon sentiments among Indian Muslims to join hands with fundamentalist Muslim organizations in mobilizing anti-Bush rallies in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and other places. In these rallies, some of the protesters openly held placards proclaiming their willingness to become suicide bombers. The Communist parties joined hands with such fanatical elements purely for consolidating their minority vote-bank. It is also for this reason that they have sought Madani’s release. No wonder that Madani’s party has pledged its support to the LDF in Kerala.