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BJP Propaganda Nailed

Anil Shastri

The two-day Convention of the Block and District Congress Committee Presidents had come at the right time. It provided an excellent opportunity for the party to clarify once and for all its policies, especially those relating to the crucial issue like secularism. Against the background of persistent disinformation and misinterpretation being indulged in by political opponents, particularly the BJP, the need for setting the record straight on one hand and on the other, acquaint the party workers as well as people at large of our policies had assumed highest importance. The malicious campaign of the BJP against the Congress began with the Assembly election in Gujarat and continued in the next round of the Assembly poll. Though the public had seen through the blatant BJP game and voted the Congress to power in Himachal Pradesh and Meghalaya, the BJP continued with its nefarious campaign. Such patently false labels like ‘soft Hindutva’ are sought to be attributed to the Congress.

The two-day Convention fully exposed this false propaganda. The Congress president, Smt. Sonia Gandhi, told the delegates in her opening address itself "we have organized this Convention so that you are fully equipped, fully armed, fully prepared to propagate the Congress point of view and expose the BJP slanderous propaganda about us and its miserable failures where it is in power."

Underlining once again that "India is a multi-religious country", which was "why India is a secular country", she defined secularism as "Sarva Dharma Sambhav". Hindu Dharma is very liberal and pluralistic. The concept of Hindutva being propagated by the BJP, day in and day out, does not represent the true Hinduism either in spirit or in form. The Congress view point is indeed vindicated by the people of India. Even before the BJP-led coalition completed its first term in office at the Centre, the voters across the nation rejected its demented version of Hinduism when they voted out BJP from power state after state, the last being Himachal Pradesh.