Advani slams campaign to brand BJP communal

New Delhi, Nov. 22: Claiming that the branding of BJP as an anti-minority or communal party is “motivated propaganda”, the senior party leader, Mr L.K. Advani, on Sunday said that the expulsion of Jan Sangh members from Janata Party took place on Good Friday, the day of Crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

He also mentioned that the BJP came into being in 1980 on an Easter, the Day of Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Speaking at a function to mark the conclusion of the golden jubilee celebrations of the Archdiocese of Delhi, the octogenarian saffron leader made a veiled attempt to rid his party of the taint of anti-Christian violence in Orissa’s Kandhamal district and in the BJP-ruled Karnataka.

Despite conceding that the event was “apolitical”, Mr Advani said, “It is an important enough occasion for me to respond to the consistent propaganda that my party is anti-minorities and anti-Christian. Let me go back into history and cite a few examples to debunk this motivated propaganda."

Quoting barrister V.K. John, who was then chief of the Jana Sangh in Madras province, Mr Advani said, “Barrister John was asked: How can he, a Christian, accept to be an office-bearer of a communal party?

The Barrister’s reply was forthright, as he said, he knew Dr S.P. Mookerjee very well, who could never be the president of a communal party.”

Refreshing the memories of the audience, Mr Advani said, the Janata Party had been formed in 1977 by merging all the anti-Emergency parties, including the Jana Sangh, into a common political organisation to challenge the Congress led by Indira Gandhi.

“However, we were later constrained to form our own party because those of us who belonged to the erstwhile Jana Sangh were expelled from the Janata Party in 1979 on the dubious Dual Membership issue,” he said.

The expulsion took place on Good Friday, the day of Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, he added.

Quoting from his 1980 speech, Mr Advani said, “It is not without significance that we were expelled from the Janata Party on the day of Crucifixion and that we are experiencing our political rebirth in the form of the BJP on the day of Resurrection of Christ.”