BJP selects its poll issue: terrorism, Afzal Guru

The BJP on Saturday accused the Government of failing to secure the nation and alleged it was soft on terrorism.

LK Advani, the party’s prime ministerial candidate, indirectly accused the Congress-led government of endangering national security at the cost of vote bank politics.

Advani claimed the UPA Government was delaying hanging Afzal Guru, a terrorist awarded capital punishment for his role in the Parliament attack case, because he was a Muslim.

The terrorist has not been hanged because "his name happens to be Afzal Guru. Had he been some Anand Singh or Anand Mohan he would have been hanged," he said in Bangalore.

Advani claimed the common man’s security was a more important issue than unemployment and inflation and wanted India to follow a “zero-tolerance” policy against terrorism.

"Al-qaeda has not been able to carry out any terror attack in the US and Israel post-9/11 strikes as the governments of both the countries adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism," said Advani at an awareness campaign against terrorism conducted by Karnataka’s higher education department.

He claimed the UPA government had taken a "U-turn on all issues relating to terrorism", citing its decision to scrap POTA, the security law enacted by the previous NDA administration.

Earlier in the day, BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley, had accused the government of making India a soft state.

"UPA has made India into a soft state. India from a booming economy is now in a disarray as far as economy is concerned. India as a nation is an insecure nation. It is a naive foreign policy where in you seriously think Pakistan is giving you information. Pakistan's best front... non-state actors are doing it and we cannot help it. And our Prime Minister has already given Pakistan a certificate saying like us poor Pakistan is also a victiom of terrorism," he said in Mumbai.

Diptosh Majumdar, CNN-IBN’s National Affairs Editor, says the BJP’s emphasis on terrorism is a planned move. The party emphasised on terrorism during the five-state elections last year but it didn’t bring it results.

The Congress returned to power in Delhi though elections in the city were held just after the Mumbai terrorist attacks in November. The BJP tried to speak of the economy and inflation for a while but now has returned to its core issue.