(11 Mar 1996) English/Nat
It's election time in India and the hopefuls are already out on the campaign trail to woo the Indian voters.
General elections are expected to be held in late April or early May and a formal announcement of the dates is to be made in the next few days.
The first to hit the road with its election campaign is India's biggest opposition group , Bharatiya Janata Party( BJP).
In the unique B-J-P style , the party leader Lal Krishan Advani is riding a chariot as he travels across the country to garner support for his party.
It is the beginning of a 10,000 kilometers long election campaign trail.
For the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party or the B-J-P , it is also the beginning of long-awaited journey towards the seat of power in Delhi.
Despite being the largest opposition party in the country, the B-J-P has remained a ruling party-in-waiting for a long time.
This time though, its saffron brigade is hoping to do better by defeating the ruling congress party.
The top leader of the group, Lal Krishan Advani, kicked off his party's campaign even before the formal announcement of the election dates.
General elections are expected to be held next month or early May.
The party chose to start its campaign from Kerela , a state in South India where its political presence is not very strong. A decision which shows its desire to spread its appeal in new areas.
Speaking to a large crowd of party activists, Advani said the main planks of his campaign are the promise of a clean government and accountability in public life.
B-J-P's campaign has begun amid the ongoing corruption scandal that
has implicated top politicians including Advani himself - thereby putting the party's electoral prospects under a cloud.
The party however is hopeful that Advani's claims of being falsely implicated in the bribery case will convince the voters .
For some of B-J-P sympathisers, the multi-million payoffs scam is just an exercise in settling political scores.
SOUNDBITE 1:(English)
" Narasimha Rao knows that in BJP he cannot catch anybody here. So naturally what will happen is - he planned to defame Advaniji also." SUPERCAPTION : VOX POP
The thirty-five day tour of the country in a van turned chariot is clearly an attempt to undo some of the damage done to the party's image.
Ancient Hindu kings used to ride in a chariot, often to mobilise public support in times of war.
In its modern day reincarnation, the motorised and air-conditioned chariot is being used by the B-J-P to build public opinion in favour of self-reliance and Hindu cultural nationalism.
SOUNDBITE 2:( English)
" According to BJP, Hindutva is our national culture. It is not a religion." SUPERCAPTION : VOX POP
The B-J-P brand of what it calls Hindu nationalism has won the party a large support base among the majority Hindu community in India.
Nearly six years ago, Advani made a similar journey across India in a crusade to replace a mosque with a Hindu temple in Ayodhya in central India.
The mosque was razed to ground by Hindu fundamentalists two years later, setting off communal riots that killed hundreds of people.
This time around, in a bid to strengthen its support among non-Hindus, B-J-P had planned to replace its strident Hindu propaganda with corruption as its main campaign issue.
But with Advani's implication in the bribery scandal, the party may finally have to fall back on the politics of religion once again.
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