UPA under attack at Sethu rally

A huge rally organised by the Sangh Parivar in New Delhi on Sunday to protest the alleged destruction of Ram Sethu...

A huge rally organised by the Sangh Parivar in New Delhi on Sunday to protest the alleged destruction of Ram Sethu marked the beginning of its campaign against the UPA Government at the Centre ahead of the next general elections with speaker after speaker urging people to throw out the Congress-led coalition.

Though the BJP8217;s Prime Ministerial candidate Lal Krishna Advani was absent and other party leaders present on the dais chose not to speak, the VHP leaders and sadhus went overboard attacking the ruling coalition.

Demanding that Ram Sethu be declared a national monument and Rameswaram a holy city, the sadhus exhorted Hindus to use their voting right to throw out 8220;all opponents of Ram8221; from the corridors of power.

While RSS chief K S Sudarshan attacked the Congress for the affidavit it had submitted in the Supreme Court denying the historical existence of Ram, VHP leader Ashok Singhal blamed the Congress and the Communists for calling Ram an imaginary figure.

Asserting that Ram was a historical Mahapurush and India an ancient nation, he said that both the Sethu and the nation belongs to

Ram Ram ka hai Setu, Ram ka hai desh.

Acharya Dharmendra attacked the Congress in general and Sonia Gandhi in particular, calling her a foreigner. He said that today8217;s Congress party was not the Congress of Tilak, Malaviya and Patel and claimed that it no longer possesses a right-of-the-centre space in the country.

The Hindus should now take out the funeral procession of the Congress with the slogan 8216;Ram Naam Satya Hai8217;, he said.

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The organisers, meanwhile, distributed a letter of support written by AIADMK leader J Jayalalithaa, an important ally in the Ram Setu campaign.

Though many BJP leaders like Murli Manohar Joshi, Arun Jaitley, Prem Kumar Dhumal, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Vasundhara Raje, and Sushma Swaraj attended the meeting, none of them spoke. The party8217;s firebrand Hindutva leader, Narendra Modi, chose to stay away.

It seems that the party8217;s new poll strategy is to make Advani occupy the space left vacant by Vajpayee. This perhaps explains Advani8217;s absence from the programme. According to some sources, while the party would build up its election campaign in a more liberal manner, its ideological associates like the RSS and VHP would take the core agenda of Hindutva to the people.

Interestingly, placards carrying anti-caste slogans were on display at the rally. They read, 8216;Jaat paat ka Bandhan todo, Bharat ko Sri Ram se jodo Break caste bonds, unite India in the name of Ram.