Click to play videoBe it the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Jinnah fiasco or stepping down as party president in 2005, Lal Krishna Advani has been in the headlines for long. He is a person who has not only seen Indian politics evolve over the years, but also contributed to its very evolution.
In a special episode of CNN-IBN’s Face the Nation, Chief Political Correspondent Bhupendra Chaubey talks with the Leader of the Opposition on a host of political issues.
Bhupendra Chaubey:Just a couple of weeks back, the UPA Government completed two-and-a-half years in power and also a two-and-a-half years in the latest Opposition stint. Do you feel a sense of acrimony in the relations between the Congress and the BJP?
LK Advani: What you say is correct only to some extent. If there were problems in the Government’s functioning, whether in terms of policy or execution, I would think that most of these problems arise from their own allies not from the Opposition.
Bhupendra Chaubey: When you see a standoff between the Lok Sabha Speaker and the BJP and the entire NDA decides to boycott Parliamentary meetings, does it send the right signals?
LK Advani: The decision taken by the NDA had nothing to do with the Speaker personally, it’s related more to the business of the House.
Bhupendra Chaubey: So, you don’t approve of the manner in which Mr Somnath Chatterjee runs the House?
LK Advani: We have had discussions on that particular issue and they are still inconclusive. Two rounds have been held and may be, there is a need for one more round. It is then that the NDA as a whole will meet and decide how to proceed further.
Bhupendra Chaubey: That is in regard to Parliamentary democracy, what about LK Advani as a Leader of the Opposition? Has a lot changed for you as a politician?
LK Advani: Not much except that earlier, even when I was the Leader of the Opposition in the House, I used to take a lot of interest in organisational matters. However, with a new president (Rajnath Singh) in place, I do not do it now. He consults me on most matters, but otherwise it is his responsibility and he looks after it.
Bhupendra Chaubey: You give a sense of being unhappy, of being marginalised in the BJP, is that a correct assessment?
LK Advani: Not at all. In fact, they would be happy if I were to take more interest.
Bhupendra Chaubey: Are you saying they would be happy if you would be elected the BJP president?
LK Advani: No.
Bhupendra Chaubey: You don’t want to be the BJP president from here on?
LK Advani: No. I think that being a Leader of the Opposition in the House is also a sufficient responsibility.
Bhupendra Chaubey: Is LK Advani a decision-maker in the BJP or is he just a consultant?
LK Advani: I am being consulted in most of the important matters. I do not want to be involved in ordinary, normal, organisational decisions.
Bhupendra Chaubey: When the entire Jinnah fiasco had happened, you said it was a historic opportunity, which you felt, had been missed by the BJP. What were you trying to say?
LK Advani: What I was trying to say is that I was a person who leads a party perceived as being anti-Pakistan, anti-Muslim, even anti-Islam.
And in the six days that I spent in Pakistan, every section of the population, right from the common man to the senior-most officials in the Government, felt that in whatever Advani is saying, he may be proud of his Hinduism.
But at the same time, this perception that he is anti-Pakistan, anti-Muslim and anti-Islam is not at all correct. I felt that it was something of an achievement not only for me personally, but for the party also. And if the party had perceived my reference to Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s 11th August speech in that perspective, it would have been an opportunity for the party.
Bhupendra Chaubey: So, the BJP missed a historic opportunity which was actually created by LK Advani?
LK Advani: You can say that. I did not do anything except to quote one of his own speeches.
Bhupendra Chaubey: Do you think that it was something that ended up decreasing your influence in the BJP?
LK Advani: May be it did within the BJP. But I feel proud of my trip to Pakistan and I feel that what I said there was the right thing to say.
Bhupendra Chaubey: Lets switch on to a bigger question-are you the perennial Prime Minister-in-making?
LK Advani: One of the main strengths of my party has been that since 1951, when the Bhartiya Jan Sangh was founded, for many years, Deen Dayal Upadhyay was the principal leader and decision-maker of the party. Subsequently, Atal Behari Vajpayee took over and later on, because of his trust in me, he would also consult me on most issues. Even in the organisation, we two used to take decisions on most issues. But the strength of the party has been that it has been the cause of the party that has been foremost part of our agenda.
Bhupendra Chaubey: In 2009, the next Lok Sabha elections, will LK Advani look at himself as prime ministerial candidate or not?
LK Advani: According to the British tradition, the Leader of the Opposition is supposed to be the Prime Minister-in-waiting. But whether a person becomes a Prime Minister or not depends mainly on the people.
Bhupendra Chaubey: What about the perception which exists within the party? Rajnath Singh was just re-nominated as the party President for a fresh three-year term. Don't you feel that he should be given a chance to be the Prime Minister? After all, he is the leader of the second-largest party in Parliament.
LK Advani: That is a question for the party and the people to decide. In fact, when Vajpayeeji became the Prime Minister, I was the party president. I felt that it would be appropriate if I announce his name as the party’s Prime Minister-in-waiting.
Bhupendra Chaubey: I want to ask you a specific question and want a candid answer. The BJP is always headed against the Congress, a party always headed by one family-the Gandhi family.
It is the Gandhi family that always takes the crucial decisions. But if I were to draw a comparison between the Congress and the BJP, I would say that the BJP is a two-man party where there is an Atal Bihari Vajpayee and an LK Advani. What is the difference between these two cultures then?
LK Advani: There is a basic difference because you see how in this party, there is no family, there is no dynasty.
Bhupendra Chaubey: But there is a duo of LK Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, which exists as a family.
LK Advani: Duo is something like what happened in the first Government of independent India. Because of their participation in the Congress party’s activities for a period of time, they had come to become a duo. In fact, even then there was Gandhi, who was superior to both of them.
Bhupendra Chaubey: What about equations within this duo? Over the years, a lot has been about Advani and Vajpayee being the best of friends at most of the times, but sometimes, they disagree and do not look at each other eye to eye. Please give a candid answer on that one.
LK Advani: The candid answer is that we have been the best of friends and the best of colleagues, but it isn’t always that we agree with one another 100 per cent. It is then that we exchange our views and come to one conclusion.
Bhupendra Chaubey: Many years back, you proposed the name of Vajpayee to be the Prime Minister. Are you expecting Vajpayee to return the favour?
LK Advani: There is no question of anyone returning any favours of this kind. It is a question of assessment and I still think that it will depend a lot upon not only Vajpayeeji, but the whole party to decide who will be the Prime Minster.
Bhupendra Chaubey: You are talking about the BJP. Do you agree and do you approve of the manner in which the BJP is working right now. Are you happy with where the BJP has reached today?
LK Advani: I think it is a great achievement. If I were to look back 15 years, I don’t think anyone expected us to be where we are today-neither anyone within the party, nor outside the party. So, it’s not a small achievement.
Bhupendra Chaubey: In the past two-and-a-half years, seniors leaders like Uma Bharti and Madan Lal Khurana, were out of the party. Do you feel that these are instances that could have been avoided? Do you feel that you could have handled these instances differently?
LK Advani: I know of situations in the earlier years, when we have had to lose even our all-India presidents. As compared to them, the names you have mentioned are not at all consequential.
Bhupendra Chaubey: You think that bygones are bygones?
LK Advani: Yes.
Bhupendra Chaubey: Pramod Mahajan passed way last year. Do you think that after his demise, there is an absence of a second generation-leader who could hold the party together?
LK Advani: No, there are so many, quite a few.
Bhupendra Chaubey: Like…
LK Advani: I don’t want to mention names because they are known. In fact, most of them came up at the national level when I became the party president and nominated most of them as the General Secretaries of the party.
Bhupendra Chaubey: If you were to think of one leader within the BJP whom Vajpayee and you would want to pass on the baton to-if at all-who would that be?
LK Advani: If that time comes, it would not be a difficult choice.
Bhupendra Chaubey: So, you are saying that there are a lot of leaders within the BJP?
LK Advani: Absolutely.
Bhupendra Chaubey: The one other issue that has dominated headlines is that we often see that there is a complete breakdown of communication between the Congress and the BJP. As two senior national parties, why do you think these situations are happening?
L K Advani: If it were the Congress party Government in office, maybe this would not have happened. You look at the economic policies. There may be a greater agreement between Congress and BJP than between the Congress and some of its Allies.
The same can be said about attitude towards other countries of the world, more particularly America. In fact, one of the Allies that the Congress has today, I always held that their ideology and approach seems to have vanished totally from what they believed at one time. Today, what remains in international policy is its anti-Americanism and in domestic policy, it’s anti-BJPism. This has become the total sum and substance of the Marxist ideology.
Bhupendra Chaubey: Is there any difference between the Congress and the BJP? Increasingly, the differences between the two parties seem to be blurring out.
L K Advani: No. There is a lot of difference between the two parties, particularly on issues that we think that the Congress parties motivation is vote-bank politics. This is a very sharp difference.
Bhupendra Chaubey: Since you talk about vote-bank politics, let me ask you - do you approve of the Sachar Committee recommendations and the Congress party’s thinking in terms of reservations on basis of religion?
L K Advani: I do not approve. The very basis of the formation of the Sachar Committee is wrong. For the first time, the Congress party hasn’t thought of minorities. They have thought of Muslim community.
And they went to the extent of suggesting a headcount even in the Armed Forces, something to which the three chiefs of the Armed Forces publicly protested. It has never happened in the history of India.
Bhupendra Chaubey: A couple of days back, you made a statement on the floor of the Lok Sabha that while you were very proud of the Ram Temple movement, you regretted with what happened on December 6, 1992 - the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Wasn’t the demolition a very logical culmination of the entire Ram Janambhoomi movement?
L K Advani: Not at all. If you were to go through the manifesto of those years, it was said that we ‘will’ respectfully shift that structure supposed to be the Babri mosque to another place and construct a Ram temple there.
I had gone to meet NTR those days asking him how did he shift the temples when the dams were constructed there. And he said it’s feasible.
Bhupendra Chaubey: A few days back, there was an NDA delegation that went and called on the President of the country. Is there a view within the BJP, the NDA that President Kalam should be the choice for the nest President as well?
L K Advani: The party has not taken any formal decision on this matter. But we have great respect for the Rashtrapati and lets see what happens.
Bhupendra Chaubey: You have had 50 years in public life. What is the biggest regret that you have? First the regret, and then the high moment.
L K Advani: My regret is that in 2004, after having performed for so well for six years, the NDA should have planned its electoral strategy and approach in a manner as to ensure a renewed mandate.
My highest moment is when we became the largest single party in the Lok Sabha. Though the Government lasted only for 13 days, Vajpayee became the Prime Minister of the country.
Bhupendra Chaubey: Do you think the time has come for the BJP and for yourself to start rethinking in terms of political arithmetic or configuration. Do you think your association with the RSS in particular is causing, may be is causing more problems for you?
L K Advani: Not at all. In fact had it not been for my association with the RSS, I would not have been what I am today.
Bhupendra Chaubey: But at the Chennai National Executive, you said categorically that different organisations are meant to do different jobs and they should not encroach on each others territory…
L K Advani: I have said that RSS, from the very beginning of the Jan Sangh, has always never directly controlled the political party. In the political party, those who are present, are allowed to control it.
Bhupendra Chaubey: Is it being controlled by the RSS now?
L K Advani: No.
Bhupendra Chaubey: On that note, thank you for talking to us on CNN-IBN.
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