Prepare for mid-term poll: Advani
Mammoth rally boosts BJP morale

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha LK Advani on Monday gave a call to his party workers to prepare for general elections. Addressing a mammoth Kisan Rally in the Capital, Advani said the Government was in turmoil and would go shortly. "It can fall in two months' time or in four months' time.

The fall of the UPA is imminent and a mid- term poll is definite due to its anti-people policies. It would not last till 2009 and complete its five year mandate, which the NDA coalition did," Advani said at the Ramlila Maidan addressing over 60,000 farmers from across the country. The rally was called against the Congress-led and Left-backed UPA Government's anti-farmer policies and to protest against several scandals related to the agriculture sector.

The former Deputy Prime Minister said that the push to development given by the NDA Government had been halted as the present Government had got enmeshed in problems of its own making.

"Nobody else but the Congress is to blame for the present mess. The Left and the Congress are always involved in noora-koosthi (shadow boxing). The country has been tolerating the UPA for over three years. Sarkar ka jana ab teh hai (the collapse of the Government is imminent)," Advani said amid slogans like Bharat ki janta rotee hai, kendra sarkar soti hai and Daal mein kuch kala hai, genhu key aayat mein ghotala hai. On the nuclear controversy, Advani said that the USA didn't want India to be a nuclear power and that is why they had put a ban on the tests.

Speaking on the issue of farmer policies, the former Deputy Prime Minister raised concerns over farmers' suicides, saying crushing debts were forcing farmers to kill themselves even in prosperous States like Punjab. Advani also pointed out that the Government was struggling to tackle terrorism and they had not made a breakthrough in any of the cases including the Mumbai train blasts . Later, Advani and BJP president Rajnath Singh along with several senior party leaders and thousands of farmers marched towards Parliament but were detained for a brief period by the Delhi Police at the Ambedkar Stadium.

Earlier, Rajnath Singh said that the present Government was anti-farmer. "The Government must extend farm loans at an annual interest of four per cent and come up with a credible farm insurance scheme. The recent minimum support price declared by the UPA is totally unacceptable as it does not reflect the actual growth reality and does not assure the farmer of remunerative prices. The BJP will launch a nationwide agitation on farmers' rights if the UPA Government does not immediately and comprehensively address all these problems," Singh said. He also said that the UPA Government would be "rooted out" because of its "wrong" policies.

A memorandum signed jointly by former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, former External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh, Advani and Rajnath Singh, said that the country was facing an agrarian crisis. Others present at the rally were former Union Ministers Murli Manohar Joshi, M Venkaiah Naidu, Vijay Goel, Gopinath Munde, Vinay Katiyar, Kisan Morcha incharge Vinod Pandey and Delhi BJP president Harshvardhan. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who was due to address the rally could not attend due to health reasons.