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Advani calls Muslims for direct talksTIRUNELVELI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president L K Advani on Saturday invited the Muslim community...

Advani calls Muslims for direct talks

TIRUNELVELI: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president L K Advani on Saturday invited the Muslim community to discuss their problems “directly” with it and not view the party “with the coloured glasses of our adversaries”.

Launching the party’s electioneering for the Lok Sabha polls at the AIADMK’s silver jubilee conference, he said BJP was committed to secularism, as enshrined in the Constitution. Former Congress Rajya Sabha member Rafiq Zakaria had told him that Muslims did not face any problem in Maharashtra, he said.

JD campaign

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BANGALORE: The ruling Janata Dal (JD) in Karnataka will kick off its campaign for the coming Lok Sabha polls on January 15, when top leaders begin a statewide tour to galvanise the party machinery. Party state unit president, B L Shankar said all the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies will be covered during the nine-day tour. Gowda and deputy Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will lead one batch, and Union Minister C M Ibrahim and Patel the other.

Secret deal’

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The BJP’s Kerala unit president, C K Padmanabhan, charged the Congress and the CPM on Saturday with “forging a secret understanding” for the coming polls and challenged them to field common candidates against BJP. He said the statements of Harkishan Singh Surjeet and Karunakaran that the two parties should help each other in fighting the BJP had “exposed the clandestine understanding the two parties had reached.”