BJP trumpets NDA’s 4 years in office

It was party time in the BJP camp today. The occasion: The NDA government’s completion of four years in office. Having celebrated its f...

It was party time in the BJP camp today. The occasion: The NDA government’s completion of four years in office. Having celebrated its five years in office barely six months ago, the party had its own logic for this backward counting. ‘‘We are counting the current term,’’ they argued.

The entire BJP headquarters was decked with marigolds. Members fired crackers and lights were put in place for the night.

Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani and BJP president M. Venkaiah Naidu led ministers and party leaders to greet Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee at his official residence. Advani presented Vajpayee with a shawl. Ministers from NDA partners were also roped in. They included George Fernandes (Samata Party), Sharad Yadav (Janata Dal-United), T.R. Baalu (DMK), Sukhdev Singh Dhindhsa (Akali Dal), M. Kannappan and Gingee Ramachandran (MDMK).

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Vajapyee in his brief address said: ‘‘The country is at the crossroads today. We can take a leap forward and even retard from where we stand.’’ He attributed the success of his government to all NDA allies.

Advani said the Vajpayee government has generated such confidence that the world now believes that ‘‘India can become a developed country’’.

Back at the party office, Naidu utilised the occasion to lambast the Congress. He said: ‘‘The sun of Congress dominance in national politics has set forever. The Congress party’s condition today is pathetic. It has failed miserably in its repeated attempts to unite the opposition under the leadership of Sonia Gandhi. The Congress willingness to form a coalition has no takers and no backers.’’

He said the Congress has suffered ‘‘humiliating defeats’’ in recent parliamentary by-elections in Kerala and Maharasthra and was relegated to third position in Assembly bypolls in Meghalaya, West Bengal, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.

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‘‘A bizarre situation is developing in Maharasthra where its coalition partner, NCP, has once again invoked the issue of the Congress president’s foreign origin, and has within 24 hours, defiantly reiterated its stand after the Congress issued a ultimatum to it. The Congress-led government in the state has neither the moral right nor the political propriety to continue in office now,’’ he said.

In Kerala, Naidu said, the Congress highcommand’s ‘‘helplessness is for all to see’’, as the senior-most party leader challenges its authority.

Pointing out that Vajpayee was the ‘‘first pure non-Congress Prime Minister’’, Naidu said he has become ‘‘the third longest-serving Indian prime minister after Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi’’.