AHMEDABAD, January 23: BJP president L K Advani today gave priority to "stability" over "corruption" as an issue in the coming elections to Lok Sabha and appealed to the people to give a decisive mandate in favour of his party.Addressing a press conference here, Advani said this time BJP would come to power with a positive vote in its favour. The last Lok Sabha election results were a clear mandate for BJP to rule but people had seen how other parties ganged up to dislodge the Vajpayee government within 13 days, he said. "Those who supported us last time would definitely vote for us this time too and majority of those who had supported other parties were also now angry at the manner Vajpayee was dislodged and vote for us," Advani claimed.
He said BJP had outsmarted Congress in setting the agenda for this election as it knew months ago that stability was going to be the main plank of this election. "During my swarna jayanti ratha yatra, I stressed on the stability because we could foresee that governmentswith outside support from Congress will not last long." "Congress withdrew support to the Gujral government thinking that Jain Commission report would create a wave for it. But now hardly anybody talks about the Jain report and it has become a non-issue and stability the main plank as identified by BJP much ahead of others," he claimed. Asked if "corruption" is not an issue for which BJP was vocal all these years, Advani said "it is also an issue because probity in government without dealing with corrupt practices is impossible".
"It is the developments which set the agenda and remote controlling of governments by Congress from outside is creating instability in the country in the past several months", Advani said underlining the importance of a stable government with clear majority.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
