Statement issued by
Shri L.K. Advani
Leader of the Opposition (Lok Sabha)

Chandigarh : December 30, 2007

Year 2007 is ending on a happy note for the Bharatiya Janata Party.

I have just returned from Shimla where Prof. Premkumar Dhumal was sworn in as the chief minister of Himachal Pradesh. The BJP was not only able to form the government in the state, following the recent elections to the state Vidhan Sabha, but it has, for the first time, won a majority on its own.

Exactly a week ago, the BJP won a spectacular victory in Gujarat under the leadership of Shri Narendra Modi. The party’s triumph in Gujarat was all the more significant for two reasons.

Firstly, Shri Modi won on the strength of a pro-incumbency wave, which was generated not on the basis of future promises but past performance. Secondly, the Congress party and its pseudo-secular supporters sought to convert the Gujarat Vidhan Sabha elections into some kind of a national referendum on “communalism vs. secularism”. They failed miserably in their effort. What is worse, they seem to be unwilling to do honest introspection and draw the right lessons from their defeat.

Five main features of political developments in 2007

If I look back at the political developments in the country during the year that is about to end, I see five broad features:

1: Any independent and unprejudiced observer of India ’s political scene will recognize a sea-change between May 2004 and December 2007. The unexpected setback suffered by the BJP in the elections to the 13 th Lok Sabha, and the accidental return of the Congress to power at the Centre created an atmosphere wherein some pundits were quick to write the obituary of the BJP ― just as they had done in 1984, when the BJP was able to win only two seats in the Lok Sabha. The Congress itself started behaving as if it had won a landslide victory, conveniently forgetting the fact that its tally of 145 MPs was only marginally more than the BJP’s tally of 138.

As a matter of fact, the steady shrinking of the Congress party on India ’s political map can be seen in a simple number. Between 2005-2007, assembly elections were held in 14 states: Tamil Nadu, Manipur, Haryana, Bihar , Jharkhand, Kerala, West Bengal, Assam, Goa , Punjab , Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh. Of these, the Congress has been able to form its governments in only four states ― Assam, Manipur, Haryana and Goa, which together account for 28 Lok Sabha seats.

2: Of the six assembly elections held in 2007 ( Goa , Punjab , Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh), the BJP has been able to win in four states ( Punjab , Uttarakhand, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh). Of these, the BJP unseated the Congress from power in three states ( Punjab , Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh). Congress party’s only victory in 2007 was in Goa .

Another half-victory for the BJP in 2007 was Karnataka, where it became a victim of the opportunism and betrayal of the most brazen kind, in spite of having emerged as the single largest party in the 2004 assembly elections. I am sure that 2008 will witness the BJP’s full victory in Karnataka.

3: The BJP’s loss in UP was indeed a big disappointment. But the victory of the Bahujan Samaj Party in that state was principally guided by the people’s desire for a stable alternative to the previous Samajwadi Party’s government, which was highly discredited. Since they saw the BSP as the most viable alternative, the “swing” voters preferred the BSP over the BJP.

My party has learnt the right lessons from the defeat in UP and is presently engaged in a serious effort at reviving itself.

Nevertheless, the UP results also have an interesting lesson for national politics. I believe that, in the next parliamentary elections, the BJP and the BJP-led NDA will be the principal beneficiaries of “swing” voters nationally, since they will see my party and the NDA as the only real alternative to the discredited UPA government.

4: The Nation is paying a very heavy price for having a non-performing government headed by the weakest ever Prime Minister in India ’s history. The Prime Minister’s office has been so devalued that his writ does not run even in his own cabinet. The real power centre is not 7 Race Course Road , but 10 Janpath, which remains unaccountable to Parliament.

The Aam Aadmi has been betrayed. The Aam Aurat is groaning under the weight of price rise. Agriculture is facing the worst crisis since Independence , forcing a large number of farmers to commit suicide. Never before has the divide between the super-rich minority and impoverished majority been as wide as under the UPA rule. The UPA government has turned a blind eye to rampant corruption. This is hardly surprising since 2007 saw the government blatantly misusing its institutions to let Ottavio Quattrocchi, a fugitive and the principal accused in the Bofors scandal, go scot-free. This could not have happened without directions from those who wield real power in the UPA government.

The UPA government’s worst failure has been in the area of internal security. Its soft approach to terrorism, guided by vote-bank considerations, has emboldened the forces of jihadi terrorism. After the assassination of Ms. Benazir Bhutto, and the rising spectre of Talibanisation of Pakistan, India can ill afford to ignore the threat of jihadi terrorism to India ’s national security, unity and integrity. Today I have read a statement by the National Security Advisor, Shri M.K. Narayanan, in which he says that India needs to be insulated from the negative fallout of the developments in Pakistan . Far from insulating India, the UPA government has imperiled India due to its politics of minorityism even in dealing with jihadi terrorism.

The BJP is committed to evolving an effective agenda to deal with each of the above-mentioned issues, where the Congress-led government has proved to be an utter failure. The solutions to all the problems facing the Nation lie in GOOD GOVERNANCE, EQUITABLE DEVELOPMENT, NATIONAL SECURITY AND PROBITY IN PUBLIC LIFE. I assure the people OF India that these will remain the ideals guiding my political campaign in the coming year.

5: Lastly, 2007 demonstrated conclusively that the UPA is not a coalition, but a cabal afflicted with internal contradictions. These contradictions became most starkly manifest over the issue of the Indo-US nuclear deal, in which the Congress leadership has tried to mortgage India’s strategic defense autonomy to some illusory gains in energy security. The debate on the nuclear deal has clearly shown that the BJP is the only party that has a clear, comprehensive and principled approach to all the issues associated with the deal.

It has also exposed the Communist parties’ lack of concern for India’s national security, since they have doggedly refused to make constraints on future nuclear testing an issue for opposing the deal. It is really pathetic to see the CPI and the CPI(M) welcome nuclear weapons possessed by China and Russia, but oppose India’s own nuclear deterrent.

The internal squabbles between the UPA and the Left in 2007 showed that the only thing that keeps them together is their blind anti-BJPism. To ensure that the BJP does not return to power, the two seem ready for any compromise.

However, they will not be able to stop the comeback march of the BJP in 2008. The e nd of 2007 clearly portends the beginning of the end of the UPA rule at the Centre. As I said in New Delhi two days ago, the coming year will be a ‘YEAR OF CHANGE’ in Indian politics, and the change will be heralded by the BJP.