This time for Advani, Kalyan’s mandal is USP, not kamandal

On the question of Ayodhya, Advani said the government has been working hard to have the issue ‘‘sorted out’’ without ‘‘any movement’’ but through an agreement between the two communities. ‘‘I am optimistic that this will happen soon,’’ he said.

He said ‘‘soon’’ did not necessarily mean ‘‘today or tomorrow’’ and added,‘‘I am not relating it to the elections.’’ Though Advani maintained that the solution could even come after the elections, the Vajpayee government is keen to make a breakthrough on Ayodhya before the polls and is preparing the groundwork for a settlement, it is learnt.

Making no bones about the importance of the caste factor in the BJP’s scheme of things, Advani said, ‘‘The BJP in Uttar Pradesh became a formidable force during the 1990s—and there is no doubt that the Ayodhya movement contributed to it. But what is more significant is that it was only during this period—when Kalyan Singh was the leader—that the BJP was able to shed the image of being a party of the forward castes and it got a holistic image.’’

Advani pointed out that though the BJP state unit had other backward caste leaders such as Ompal Singh and Vinay Katiyar, no one could quite match the stature of Kalyan Singh. While Advani ruled out raising Ayodhya as an election issue, he maintained that Hindutva was very much on the agenda because as far as he was concerned Hindutva, nationalism, and development were part of an integral whole.

This time for Advani, Kalyan’s mandal is USP, not kamandal

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