New Delhi, Sep. 9 : Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal on Wednesday accused BJP leader LK Advani of taking out the Rath Yatra for personal political gain.


Advani, he said, should now think about stepping down from the post of Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

He also noted that the BJP had deviated from its founding policies and that is the reason for its apparent ’sinking’.

Singhal’s statements coincide with the times when the saffron party is facing rough weather and controversies have become an order of the day.

The no-show in Lok Sabha polls, revelation on Advani’s lie on the Kandhar episode, Jaswant Singh’s controversial book on Mohammad Ali Jinnah and his subsequent expulsion from the party are the several episodes which hit the party’s image badly.

The Gujarat unit of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) will not campaign for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the state, a senior leader said here Wednesday.

“The VHP as such does not officially announce its support for the BJP, being a ‘non-political’ body but had been supporting the party by providing its workers for the campaign work during the previous polls,” the leader told IANS on condition of anonymity.

“However, the events that took place in 2008, starting with the arrest of Gujarat VHP leader Ashwin Patel on charges of sending anti-Narendra Modi SMSes through his mobile phone and the demolition of about 100 small and big temples in Gandhinagar when VHP’s intervention pleas were not heard by (Chief Minister Narendra) Modi made us decide not to campaign for the party this time round,” he said.

The VHP leader also said that its sister organisation - the Bajrang Dal - will also not campaign for the BJP.
Both the organisations had provided its cadres to the party for campaign during the 2007 assembly polls.
“We have nothing against the BJP as a party but certainly oppose the neglect of our leaders by Modi. There is no question of campaigning for the party in the Lok Sabha polls unless the VHP’s central leaders asked us to campaign,” the leader said.

He said that during the 2002 assembly polls the VHP had worked very hard to ensure Modi’s victory by reaching to the masses in the most interior villages of Gujarat.

The Gujarat state BJP chief Purshottam Rupala, when contacted, refused to comment on the issue.

New Delhi, Mar 21 : Acceding to a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) demand, BJP today dropped its declared candidate from Haridwar constituency and announced a Hindu monk as its official candidate.

"The party has made a small change in its list of candidates for Uttarakhand. Swami Yatindranand Giri would be our candidate instead of Madan Kausik,"the party&aposs office secretary Shyam Jaju told PTI.

Kausik is a minister in the Uttarakhand government of BJP.

According to sources, VHP leaders, including Ashok Singhal, had recently led a delegation to party leader L K Advani, demanding that the Haridwar seat be left for"sadhus and saints".

“Though there was a threat to the life of Saraswati, the Naveen Patnaik government failed to give him protection,” she charged.

She also blamed Patnaik for his failure to arrest the killers of the VHP leader.

“Those who should have been behind the bars are moving scot free and our workers are in jail,” she said, appealing to people to vote for a party that would arrest the killers of Saraswati.

The VHP leader and four of his aides were killed on Aug 23 last year in Kandhamal district, about 200 km from here. The murder triggered widespread violence against Christians in the state, especially in Kandhamal.
Terming the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) government as “betrayer”, Swaraj told a gathering of thousands at the ‘Vijay Sankalp’ (victory resolution) rally that the BJP was determined to teach the chief minister a lesson.

It was the first mass gathering by the BJP in the state after its 11-year alliance with the BJD led by Naveen Patnaik collapsed March 7.

“I have come here to tell Naveen Patnaik that people will not tolerate him and throw him out of power,” Swaraj said in her speech in Hindi. Swaraj also blamed the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) for being soft on terrorism.

“There was a stronger law to deal with terrorism but the UPA government abolished it,” Swaraj said, referring to the Prevention of Terrorism Act.

Orissa will go to the polls for Lok Sabha and assembly in two phases April 16 and 23.