Ayodhya and the tale of two documents

The National Democratic Alliance manifesto released by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Thursday and the Bharatiya Janata Party's 'vision document' have a similar take on the Ayodhya issue.

But there is one difference: the NDA document says, "We continue to hold that the judiciary's verdict in this matter should be accepted by all."

The BJP leadership apparently exercised care to satisfy both the Sangh Parivar constituents as well as NDA partners on the eve of the general election.

Both documents, however, target Congress president Sonia Gandhi. They say that a "legislation will be introduced to ensure that important offices of the Indian state can be occupied by only those who are India's natural citizen by their Indian origin".

On internal security, the two documents say the same thing in different words. While the vision document says, "The long misrule of the Congress party weakened India's internal security apparatus and reduced its capacity to counter jehadi terrorism."

The manifesto simply emphasises that 'cross-border terrorism will be eliminated'.

The manifesto, however, underscores its resolve to build a consensus to enact a central law for constituting an agency to deal with federal crimes.

On Jammu and Kashmir, both documents talk about the return of Kashmiri Pandits to their native places and underscore the necessity of the balanced development of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh.

On the Northeast, the BJP document says that the ethnic identity of locals will be protected and infiltration from Bangladesh stopped by vigorously pursuing the 3-D formula (detect, delete and deport), while the manifesto points out that it is committed to the 'repeal of the Illegal Migrant Detection Tribunal Act for putting an end to infiltration from Bangladesh'.

Unlike the vision document, which speaks about banning religious conversions through fraudulent and coercive means, the manifesto has steered clear of the issue.

Both documents have spoken about women's reservation and while the vision document says it wants their all-round empowerment, the manifesto says it wants 33 per cent reservation in Parliament and legislatures.

However, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Thursday pointed out that this had not been possible because of some difference of opinion among a few parties. "The men don't want to vacate," Vajpayee said amid laughter.