Note ban, LoC strike to be on BJP poll plank

New Delhi: Hailing the Narendra Modi government’s moves for a surgical strike on terror launchpads across the Line of Control and the demonetisation exercise as “historic”. the BJP on Friday sounded confident that it will win the coming Assembly elections in five states, including in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The twin issues may also figure prominently in the party’s election campaign.

Hailing the cross-LoC surgical strike as a “bold decision” by the government and claiming that the whole world had appreciated India’s strength after it, the BJP, in a stern message to Pakistan for sheltering terror modules, said while the Modi government would continue to show “zero tolerance” for terrorism, it also “reserves every right to respond to such threats in an appropriate and out-of-the-box manner in future too”.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi got a standing ovation for these two “historic decisions” at the BJP national executive meeting that began here on Friday. Party chief Amit Shah said both decisions will find a positive mention in history. The national executive also passed a political resolution “Transformative Governance — Value-based Politics”, which hailed these twin decisions of the Modi government. It described the Opposition parties as “anti-people and anti-democracy” for criticising demonetisation, and said 2016 was the “dawn of a new era” with several transformative decisions by the government in the spheres of national security, self-pride, probity and the welfare of the poor.

In the election-going states, the BJP’s main poll plank will be good governance and development, and party leaders have been asked to highlight the demonetisation as the government’s “surgical strike against black money and corruption”. While some BJP poll managers are not in favour of highlighting the demonetisation issue too much, keeping in mind the hardships faced by people, Mr Shah asserted that the party had snatched the “pro-poor” plank of the Opposition parties as the people were in favour of the decision, despite facing problems.

Hailing the Modi government for taking “transformative initiatives”, the resolution said the government ushered in a “new light” in the lives of the “poor and downtrodden” while “benefiting the country” by setting the “basics of the economy right”.

Asserting that the BJP had got a mandate in 2014 not just to run the country but to “transform” it, Mr Shah, in his inaugural address, said his party’s performance in the recent byelections and local body elections after the demonetisation had proved that the people were backing the decision and had “exposed” the Opposition. He said the demonetisation would boost the government’s revenue that would be spent on pro-poor welfare measures.

Hitting out at the Opposition parties, Mr Shah said earlier they used to ask what the government had done to check black money, and now they were asking why it had taken such a decision. “Their shift from what to why has exposed them,” Mr Shah told party leaders at the meeting.

Referring to the party’s last national council meeting in Kozhikode in September, Mr Shah said its leaders had felt the pain of the Uri terror attacks as he highlighted the two “historic” decisions of the government afterwards.

“For the first time India carried out such a surgical strike. The whole world appreciated India’s strength. It was an example of great bravery. This surgical strike is India’s answer to terrorism. The BJP always spoke about its policy of zero tolerance against terrorism, and has now acted accordingly,” the BJP president said.

The resolution also claimed the strikes had the “required effect on our neighbour”, which can be “gauged from the fact that there is near normal silence on the India-Pakistan border in the last few weeks, and also the initiative taken by Pakistan to call for DGMO-level talks between the two countries”.

On demonetisation, it said various surveys had indicated overwhelming public support for the exercise. Mr Shah said it had “rattled” the Opposition. “The Opposition has been exposed and does not know what to do as the poor, who for historical reasons shown preference for a few parties, are now backing Modi and the BJP and the pro-poor plank has been snatched from the hands of these parties,” he said.

Criticising the Opposition parties, mainly the Congress, for stalling the Winter Session of Parliament, the BJP said: “Obstruction and obfuscation has become the hallmark of Opposition politics in the country.” It also said the demonetisation decision was not “abrupt” and argued the government was in “active mode” against black money since it took over in 2014.

Citing attacks on its workers in Mamata Banerjee-ruled West Bengal and Left-ruled Kerala, the BJP said “normal functioning of political activity has become difficult under the draconian TMC rule” and that the “red terror in Kerala continues to rob the lives” of its dedicated karyakartas.

“Extreme appeasement politics of the governments in the states have led to severe communal tension and strife in these states... The failure of the TMC government in West Bengal in safeguarding the majority law-abiding community is most glaring in the recent Dhulagarh riots, where rioters went about torching houses and shouting slogans like Pakistan Zindabad while the state police had looked the other way,” reads the resolution.

Fully supporting Mr Modi’s “path-breaking initiative” in electoral reforms by suggesting simultaneous polls to the Central and state legislatures, the national executive said such “a move, together with several other important reforms, would pave way for cleaner and healthier electoral practices in the country”.

On the coming Assembly elections in five states, the resolution said the people of the country were “yearning to follow PM Modi’s development politics” and appealed to its cadre to work hard “so that we can secure the mandate of the people and form governments in all five states”. Targetting the Congress government in Manipur, the BJP bamed it for the recent blockade and said the BJP will usher in a “bandh-mukt” and “vikas-yukt” Manipur if it was voted to power in the northeastern state.