LK Advani sheds hardliner image

India's Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishan Advani (R) is fitted with a traditional Muslim turban by Muslim Leader Haji Islam Qamar Salmani during a Muslim rally in New Delhi, yesterday. Advani was garlanded by several hundred Muslims who joined his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) heralding it as a party of hope ahead of general elections which will start 20 April.. PHOTO: AFP

Indian Deputy Prime Minister L K Advani will hit the road on March 10 for BJP's high-profile cross-country campaign for coming general elections. The opposition parties led by Congress promptly attacked Advani's proposed roadshow saying voicing it might stoke communal passions ahead of the polls.

Announcing the 33-day campaign that will take him from in extreme southern part of the country to the extreme north in the first phase, Advani told a press conference here on Tuesday that he would highlight the achievements of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.

The first phase of the campaign begins in the coastal Hindu pilgrimage town of Kanyakumari at the confluence of Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea and end on March 26 in Amritsar, the Sikhs' holiest city.

The second and final phase of Advani's road journey in a bus starts in Porbander, where Farther of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi was born, and finish at the pilgrimage town of Puri in eastern state of Orissa.

It may be recalled that Advani had taken out a "chariot yatra" across the country in 1990 at the crest of BJP's movement for construction of temple in Ayodhya which set the party on a rising political and electoral graph.

Advani said the focus of coming elections was development and achievements of five years of Vajpayee government as compared to half a century of Congress rule in the country.

He said there was "a qualitative change" from the past seveal decades in that "no emotional issue" has been raked up and BJP was asking the people to vote on the basis of Vajpayee government's performance.

"Incumbency is generally considered a liability (for the ruling party). But in our case, incumbency is not a liability and it is, in fact, Vajpayee government's biggest asset," the Deputy Prime Minister added.

Advani said Vajpayee had exploded the "illusion" that none other than the Nehru family could rule India.