ELECTIONS '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Stop calling us communal, BJP tells TDP

Bharatiya Janata Party's Andhra Pradesh general secretary A Narendra has asked his counterpart in the ruling Telugu Desam Party, C Ramachandraiah, to desist from calling the BJP a "communal party."

In a strongly-worded statement, he claimed that minorities were rejecting "pseudo secular" parties and joining the BJP ''which is the true secular party.''

Reminding Ramachandraiah of the long association TDP-founder N T Rama Rao had with the BJP, he asked: ''Does he mean to say that the late NTR was also communal?''

On Monday, Ramachandraiah had said that the TDP continued to regard the BJP ''still communal'' regardless of the regional party's support to the Vajpayee government, and the BJP not contesting against it in three of the four assembly constituencies in next month's bypoll.

Narendra said Ramachandraiah had no moral right to call the BJP a communal party. He said the TDP should remember that more than nine per cent of minorities voted for the BJP throughout the country.

The BJP, he said, has evolved a three point formula to promote the minorities -- taleem (education), tanzeem (organisation) and tijaralle (business).

UNI

Tell us what you think of this report