India Elections 2009 - A speech for Mr. Advani

Friends

I am happy to address you today as we approach the first phase of elections for the Lok Sabha.

I am also happy to note that the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is hale and healthy.

I wanted to take this ocassion to define to you what this Lok Sabha election must come to mean.

Today Congress President Sonia Gandhi made a very perceptive remark, I wonder if the irony was not lost on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Smt Sonia Gandhi said that while there were many who could be Prime Minister nobody could stand in front of Dr. Manmohan Singh.

How very true, even if any of us wanted to stand in front of Dr. Singh he is either unwilling or incapable of giving us the opportunity with his reluctance to contest the Lok Sabha election.

This friends is what this election ought to be about.

This election has to be about Leadership.

On the one hand you have strong and decisive Leadership that is willing to put its claims to test in the court of public opinion by directly holding itself accountable to the people.

On the other hand you have surrogacy that is being passed of as a substitute for Leadership with this reluctance to face the people by putting the 5 year record to test directly in a Lok Sabha contest.

I dont know if it is his waning love for Assam or the sliding fortunes of the Congress Party in that state that Dr. Manmohan Singh has chosen to shy away from a real Lok Sabha contest while continuing to claim to represent it in the Rajy Sabha.

Be that as it may, this election is also about something Dr. Manmohan Singh said today in his political remarks when he asked through his party’s surrogates in the media

“What is L.K. Advani’s contribution to National Welfare ?”

I wish Dr. Manmohan Singh had the courage and conviction to ask me that question face to face in a televised debate.

But then perhaps it is too much to expect him to face the people of this nation in a debate when he is reluctant to face them on the ballot.

Well Dr. Singh, my contribution to the welfare of this nation is the freedom that you enjoy today to ask me that question without fear of political persecution.

My contribution to the nation, Dr. Singh is that very same political freedom that your Party had deprived this nation of for four whole years by imposing emergency.

My contribution to the nation, Dr. Singh was to sacrifice my personal freedom and the comforts of life to fight for the cause democracy from inside the four walls of Jail during those four years of emergency while you continued to enjoy the comforts of everday life.

My contribution to the nation Dr. Singh was to defend that very document that entitles you to the Office of Prime Ministership - the Indian Constitution, the very document that your Party on every opportune occassion has trampled and violated.

I am not Oxbridge educated nor am I an economist by training.

But I do know a thing a or two about “welfare” and I am proud to have groomed some of the finest breed of leaders who have broken new ground in delivering Welfare through their Governance in states like Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

Leadership Dr. Singh is not about being selected to High Office by virtue of lineage, but Leadership is about sowing the seeds of future leadership so many more can reap the harvest from their efforts.

I take pride in the fact that Team Advani has raised the bar on public welfare through Governance and Development initiatives like Jyotigram and Ladli Lakshmi Yojana.

Friends, this election is also about Leadership that has the courage and conviction to face the truth and does not shy away from making hard decisions.

Over the last five years there have been multiple terrorist attacks. I have on occassion met many victims and kith and kin of deceased in these terrorist attacks.

On every occassion these victims of terrorism ask me

Why is that the Dr. Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi never own up to their responsibility for lapses in Terror ?

Why is it they always give us cold comfort by pointing out that there were other attacks during the previous government ?

Should we draw comfort from the fact that others too suffered our fate and go on with our lives ?

Does our loss have no meaning to Dr. Manmohan Singh and Smt Sonia Gandhi that rather than explain how they will bring the Terrorists to justice, they want to spend time talking about what happened 8 years back ?
It pains me to hear Dr. Manmohan Singh run away from his government’s failures on Terrorism by harking back on what happened in 1999, 2000 and 2001.

Yes there were lapses during the NDA regime too, yes things could have been done better, we learnt from our mistakes but we never shied away from putting our performance to the electoral test and we faced the people in 2004 and they gave their verdict.

But Dr. Manmohan Singh how does that help the victims of Delhi, Varnasi, Bangalore, Mumbai 7/11, Hyderabad, Malegaon, Samjhauta Express, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Ajmer Sharif, Guwahati and Mumbai 26/11.

Should that widowed wife, bereaved father and orphaned son take comfort in the fact that 10 years back too someone suffered in a terrorist attack ?

Dr. Manmohan Singh wanted the nation to reflect on what makes someone fit to be Prime Minister.

He is right, and the nation ought to reflect on this criminal negligence and continued delinquency on his part.

Friends I was pleased to note that the Congress party has released its manifesto where it intends to focus on Terrorism and the Economy. It reminds me of Primary School impositions where a child is asked to write a 100 times that they will not repeat a mistake. The Congress Manifesto seems no better than that in its repetition of things it did not do during the last 5 years that it now promises to do.

The Congress Party would like this election to be about festering the wounds of the past by raking up the unfortunate demolition of the Babri Masjid and the unacceptable riots in Gujarat.

The BJP is looking ahead and not to the past. Leadership is also about facing up to the ghosts of the past and about challenging the bigotry amongst your best friends.

In closing let me assure you that if the BJP lead NDA is voted back to power I shall personally lead the effort for a National Reconciliation on all contentious issues of the last century.

Its my assurance to the Youth of this country that bigotry of the past few decades will not be perpetuated and future governments will not have to carry the burden of the failed politics of Communal Socialism practised by the Congress Party during the first 4 decades after Independence.

Jai Hind and Vande Mataram