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Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and Union Home Minister L K Advani Sunday said the campaign to build a temple in place of the 16th-century Babri mosque in Ayodhya (Uttar Pradesh) played a major role in boosting the BJP's rise to power at the Centre.
There were also enough indications that the party planned to bring up the issue during the forthcoming assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.
Addressing BJP leaders at a national council meet, at the Talkatora indoor stadium in Delhi, to celebrate the golden anniversary of the birth of the party's predecessor Jan Sangh, Advani asserted that the BJP's ideology of 'cultural nationalism' made it a party with a difference.
"Had we not taken the Ram janmabhoomi (Ram birthplace) movement forward we would not have arrived at the place we are now," Advani remarked.
The BJP is the major partner in the ruling National Democratic Alliance at the Centre.
However, Advani, one of the founder leaders of the Jan Sangh, admitted that the dramatic growth had bloated the party like the Congress - India's oldest party - and blurred its original nationalist ideology.
"Unfortunately, people call us a better Congress. But they want an original BJP," he remarked.
The Jan Sangh and later the BJP had for long failed to dominate Indian politics until Advani in 1989, as party president, decided to lead an emotive nationwide movement to build a Hindu temple in place of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya.
The BJP came to public prominence only with its strong ideology and the temple movement, he asserted.
However, Advani asked the cadre to project the issue in the right perspective and prevent it from being distorted by vested interests.
In a separate resolution adopted by the BJP on Sunday, the party said the Ayodhya movement was reflective of India's cultural personality.
"It convinced people of the certain and sharp distinction between positive secularism and pseudo secularism.
"The movement created a massive national impact and changed the mindset of millions of Indians. Our acceptability grew. We spread into those areas of the country where we earlier had little presence. We found legislative representatives in almost every major state," the resolution said.
Indo-Asian News Service
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