Temple issue not a priority at BJP national executive: Naqvi

The contentious issue of building a Ram temple at Ayodhya will not be on the BJP's priority list when its leaders converge in Goa for the national executive meeting, party spokesperson Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said here Thursday.

Naqvi was speaking to reporters at the party's state headquarters in Panaji ahead of the three-day conclave which gets underway Friday.

"The priority before the party is price-rise, corruption and bad governance of this government," Naqvi said, when asked why party leaders had been silent on the Ayodhya temple issue.

The meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) national executive will feature the creme de la creme of the leadership, who are expected to work out a strategy with an eye to the forthcoming general election, which Naqvi said could be held in 2013 instead of 2014 when they are scheduled.

Naqvi also said that the BJP was firm in its ideological commitment to the temple issue, which was one of the key factors through the 1980s-90s that led to the astronomical rise of the right-wing party into national political consciousness.

"We are honest about our ideological commitments. But political issues which are before the country are our priority," Naqvi said, adding that in face of malgovernance and corruption, only the BJP could provide a "strong and effective alternative to free the government from corrupt raj".