Eye on 2014, Advani raises call to arms

MADURAI: Former Deputy Prime Minister and senior BJP leader LK Advani on Thursday raised a call to arms to his partymen. In a message that was aimed at exhorting his party’s Tamil Nadu unit, Advani said it would be imperative to get enough people in effective leadership roles and decide on a suitable strategy.Explaining his point using his decades of experience with the party right from its Bharatiya Jana Sangh days, Advani said, “Three generals, namely Shyama Prasad Mukherjee, Deendayal Upadhyay and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, are responsible for the growth of the party since the first ever elections in 1952.”“We can be proud of creating a party that has changed India into a bipolar polity. The idea is to not focus on elections but aim to make India great. We can become a great country only if there is good governance,” Advani added, taking a swipe at the UPA government.Speaking at the final session of the first day of the BJP’s state conference, ‘Thaamarai Sangamam’, at Madurai, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj insisted that the delegation of MPs that she had led to Sri Lanka was not a picnic. “It was not a picnic, it was not a junket. We met Tamils in an IDP camp. It was not a government-controlled trip. It was a very informative trip,” she said. Swaraj hit out at suggestions that the MPs had received gifts from Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa. “I did not receive the gifts as an individual. I received it as a representative of the Indian government. It would be impolite to refuse. I have turned the gift over to the government,” she said.