ON THE BJP joining hands with former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh
— who left the Congress after being removed as the chief minister
— for the February 20 election, BJP president J P Nadda said it was because he had raised the border issues with the Centre many a time.
“He (Captain Amarinder Singh) has been an administrator and his concerns on the border issues matched ours,” Nadda.
While Nadda ruled out any “compromise” with the Akali Dal,
He said that a final decision would be taken by the BJP parliamentary board after the results.
“As far as Akalis are concerned, we had been in a coalition with them and had too many difficulties.
We could fight in 23 of the 117 seats but our vote share is big.
Last time, too, we had been advised to leave the Akalis, but we did not.
Our priority is to grow in the state.
So, I don’t see much scope in compromising with them but our senior leaders in the Parliamentary Board will take a decision after the results,” he said.
As elections enter the last leg in Uttar Pradesh, Nadda said leaders like Akhilesh Yadav had
“compromised” with national security and it was the “duty and responsibility” of the BJP to “expose them before the electorate”.
He was responding to a question on the tenuous link that his party leadership had drawn between bombs planted in bicycles, the party symbol of the Samajwadi Party, and terrorism.
Similarly, Nadda said his party had “an issue” with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)
– against which the BJP has raised allegations of links to terrorists
– coming to power in a state like Punjab which shares a 600-kilometer border with Pakistan.
While it is almost a straight fight between the BJP and SP in UP,
the AAP had emerged as a strong contender to the Congress in Punjab.
Nadda said Samajwadi Party leader Akhilesh Yadav did not respond to the charge of releasing “terrorists” from jail when the former became the Chief Minister in 2012.
“We have to expose those who have a deceptive image.
They are trying to portray one image, but they are anti-development people because if chief ministers support and protect terrorists in the 21st century, I think they are supporting those who are weakening the country.
Akhilesh (Yadav) tries to put up a sweet face. In almost all rallies, I have connected his name with named terrorists.
He has not spoken a word on such a serious charge,” Nadda said.
“I am saying Tariq Kazmi had been released by you… Khalid Mujahid was released by you and Shahabuddin too. Give me an answer.
I am saying the first work you did as Chief Minister was to release these terrorists.
The court procedures were going on.
He wrote in the manifesto that the Muslim youth had been unnecessarily harassed. When he became Chief Minister, all those 15 cases were withdrawn,” he said.
Both Kazmi and Mujahid were part of the alleged terrorist outfit Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami which was held responsible for the November 2007 serial blasts in Varanasi, Lucknow and Faizabad.
The PM has accused the Opposition of being soft on terror and singled out the SP for attack, linking its election symbol, the bicycle, to those used to plant some of the bombs in the 2008 Ahmedabad blast case.
Alleging that regional parties are “dynastic” and holding “regional aspirations above the national aspirations”, Nadda said parties like SP have compromised with terror for power.
He slammed the Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP, which apparently has emerged as a force to reckon with in the Punjab elections, saying that the Delhi Chief Minister’s “links with terrorist outfits and its sympathizers” has not been explained so far.
“Have you ever had a meeting with a terrorist outfit? Is your political party being funded by terrorist groups? These are specific questions.
I am a sweet terrorist is not the answer. It’s deviating, digressing. I have to expose them,” Nadda said.
While agreeing that AAP has a “right to grow” in a democratic country, Nadda said that there was a “vacuum” left by Congress and Akali Dal.
“We were with Akalis, and they left us. There was a vacuum.
People got fed up with both the Congress and Akali Dal. And AAP has taken advantage of it.
Now we have an opportunity,” he said.
Asked whether the BJP preferred the Congress as an opposition to the AAP, Nadda said:
“We don’t see it in that term.
We see things in terms of the 600 km border with India.
The issue is our national security.
The way Kejriwal compromised with the terrorist organisation, it’s problematic for a border state.”
