BJP lambasts UPA's foreign policy

 Addressing a press conference in Bangalore, BJP national president Rajnath Singh said the UPA government’s stand against linking terrorism to the composite dialogue process with Pakistan was unfortunate and shameful.

He said the Centre should immediately stop “shifting goalposts” and come up with a contingency plan to undo the damage by introducing bilateral policies based on national consensus and national interest. “The BJP believes that Pakistan is the cradle of terrorism, and that the infrastructure of terrorism has to be dismantled permanently,” he said.

On whether India had acted under pressure to issue the joint statement, Singh said: “The role of the United States cannot be ruled out.” The government had dealt a huge blow to the basic tenets of India’s foreign policy by allowing Pakistan to accuse India of interference in Balochistan, he added.

The UPA government, the BJP supremo said, had failed to contain price rise, adding that the prices of pulses had risen by 30 per cent over the last one-and-a-half months. He demanded that the Centre also regulate the prices of petrol so that the common man is not hit hard.

Hindutva

Earlier in the day, inaugurating the state executive meeting, Singh devoted a major portion of his opening speech to the BJP’s stand on the Hindutva ideology and cultural nationalism.

Refuting suggestions in the wake of its poll debacle that the BJP should revisit its Hindutva ideology, Singh asserted there was no question of a rethink on the matter. He said the party stood firm on its stand that Hindutva was a geo-cultural concept denoting co-existence.

Singh claimed the Left Front and the BSP had fared badly in the Lok Sabha elections, because they deviated from their ideologies. While the Left had deviated from its pro-poor stand on the Nandigram issue, the BSP had digressed from its Dalit stand. The BJP did not believe in vote bank politics, and that it was constitutionally and morally right in opposing the Sachar Committee recommendations and reservation on religious lines, he said.

Singh added India was moving towards a bi-polar polity, with the Congress and the BJP, noting that in the Lok Sabha polls, none of the regional parties could get more than 25 seats.

Singh said the UPA government had come to power “by chance” and may not be able to complete its full term. The BJP had full potential to come back to power in the next general elections, he added.