Why Can't BJP Change?

Sudheendra Kulkarni, LK Advani's speechwriter asks BJP why it can't be an all-inclusive party?

If Mayawati’s triumphant and praiseworthy concept of Sarvajan Samaj (all-inclusive society) has a place for Muslims, why is the BJP so queasy about accommodating Muslims in its own electoral strategy? Why didn’t the BJP field a single Muslim candidate in any of the 403 assembly constituencies in a state where Muslims constitute 18.5 per cent of the population? The party indeed has some justification in criticising its political opponents for Muslim “appeasement”, but is it practising its own precept — namely, “Justice for All” — when it neither takes up any just issues of Indian Muslims nor feels morally and ideologically obliged to give due democratic representation to such a huge section of Indian society? How can the BJP hope to govern India if it continues to have an emotional disconnect with Indian Muslims?Some leaders of the Sangh Parivar even go to the extent of haughtily saying, “We don’t need Muslim votes.” Well, democracy has a predictable way of punishing these bigots. The BSP, a party of the Scheduled Castes, moved away from badmouthing brahmins to embracing them, thereby scripting a winning electoral formula without alienating Muslims. Call it soft Hindutva or anything else, but it has worked. Who then is preventing the BJP from similarly expanding its support base by moving away from its half-hearted, on-again-off-again attempts to reach out to Indian Muslims to making it a sincere component of its ideological commitment, political activism and election strategy? We know the answer: it is those who are urging it to adopt “aggressive Hindutva” in pursuit of non-existent, even counter-productive, electoral gains. [IE]

No wonder many of the dazed BJP supporters are calling for Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi being given charge of UP BJP! Havent these people learnt anything yet? Oh yes! it will take a long time for them to recover from the tight slap administered by UP voters on BJP 'face'.