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PRESS TRUST OF INDIA
NEW DELHI, OCT 17: Union Home Minister L.K. Advani has denied the charge that the BJP's emphasis on the (Hindutva) ideology between 1986 and 1996 had made it communal and said the party had chosen the path of alliances as it could not grow further on an ideological basis.
``On an ideological basis, we couldn't grow further. So we embarked on the path of alliances and today the NDA has 300 seats in Parliament,'' he said in an interview to English weekly magazine, Outlook.
Stating that he ``abhors communalism'', Advani said ``all of this which is said about ideology...Atalji is the liberal face...I am supposed to be the principal person for making the party communal...I would say I abhor communalism,'' according to a press release by Outlook.
He said the communal charge had been ``levelled against us since 1952, even under S.P. Mukherjee, and the reason why it intensified during 1986-96 was because nobody thought that a party which could emphasise its ideology so strongly could grow sopowerful,'' the release quoted him as saying.
``Accompanied by the mistakes of the Rajiv Gandhi government on Shah Bano, the Ayodhya Shilanyas and the ram rajya poll slogan, this gave us a sharp edge,'' he said.
About the BJP's shift in strategy from 1996 onwards when it cultivated allies, Advani said, ``The first election we faced as the BJP in 1984 was our lowest point; from then on till 1996 when we emerged as the single largest party, our growth was based on emphasising our ideology. However, nobody was willing to touch us with a bargepole despite Vajpayee being invited to form the government,''
On the emergence of the term ``pseudo-secular'' as a potent political slogan, he said that if the Rajiv government ``had not made the mistakes it did, if the Congress had been the party it was in pre-1947, there would not have been much justification in calling it pseudo-secular''.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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