NEW DELHI, 7 April 2008 — If the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) comes to power in the next parliamentary elections, a key prerogative of its main member, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would be to cancel all the schemes initiated by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to “appease a particular community.”
The announcement was made by BJP President Rajnath Singh here yesterday. Although he did not name any community, he was apparently referring to Muslims.
Strongly criticizing certain minority-welfare schemes in this year’s budget, Singh said: “We will not give scholarship to somebody on the basis of whether he is Muslim or Christian. Our welfare measures will be based on economic conditions of the people,” Singh said.
Although the BJP owed its political rise to communal rhetoric, the party had to put it on the backburner to secure “secular” allies’ support to form a coalition government in 1998. The party is confident of returning to power with greater strength this time. “I am more than confident that the BJP will emerge as the single largest party in the general election and the NDA will bounce back to power,” Singh said.
“Talks are going on with many political parties to expand the NDA,” he said. Declining to name those parties, Singh said: “I am confident that the number of parties in NDA will increase soon.”
Blaming the UPA government for its “total failure in every front,” Singh said that rocketing inflation leading to increasing discontentment among the common people would throw the UPA out of power. Besides, the NDA is confident of returning to power in several states, where assembly elections are scheduled this year.
