LK Advani woos voters on Internet

By Iftikhar Gilani / Dawn News

NEW DELHI: The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) will go to the polls with an action plan on “precise steps need to be taken in the first 100 days” if elected to power to dispel the gloom that has descended on the nation during the UPA rule, BJP candidate for prime minister Lal Krishna Advani said in response to a question in an Internet chat on rediff.com on Thursday.

The BJP circulated the full text of his replies to about 35 questions he could take during the chat. “The first task before a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government would be to dispel the gloom and recreate the general climate of optimism and hope that was obtained in the six years of Vajpayee’s rule,” he said, pointing out that a group in the BJP was already working on the action plan for the purpose. Trying to be pally with the young surfers who flooded him with a volley of questions – over 5,000 as claimed by BJP – Advani even gave out his phone number to contact him at his residence on 23794124/25 through his website www.lkadvani.in.

He sought to convince one Vijesh not to hate all politicians as a class. “I think that politicians as a class are no better or worse than any other section of society. And, to dump them as being selfish, etc [is] not fair. Though the perception of the people about politicians as a class is not complimentary because they are always in the limelight and their shortcomings are talked about much more than the shortcomings of other sections.” Feeling “very sad” over India figuring very low in the Transparency International Report, Advani swung back to politics, talking about the Vajpayee government functioning in a “transparently honest manner” and then stressing that “what has been achieved in Gujarat under the leadership of Narendra Modi has made this state a model for all others in the country as a corruption-free state”. “I believe this would be one of the principal objectives a new NDA government at the Centre would have in mind. The example of people at the helm of affairs, the necessary systemic changes that have to be made, and the setting up of the Lok Pal and Lok Ayukt would be steps taken very early during an NDA regime,” he stressed.