New Delhi:
BJP's key strategist Sudheendra Kulkarni has sought to clarify his remarks that his party does not consider Congress political "untouchable" and said "the question" of the two parties "working together in the post-May 16 scenario is simply unthinkable".
In a statement issued in New Delhi, the close associate of NDA's Prime Ministerial candidate L K Advani said that "erroneous news reports" on his remarks during a TV debate had created a "misleading impression" that he wanted BJP and Congress to work together to form a stable government.
Dismissing the reports as "completely untrue and preposterous", he said, "Any future possibility of the BJP and Congress working together in the nation's interests hinges on the Congress party eschewing its attitude of 'political untouchability' towards the BJP."
Referring to the TV debate during which he made the reported comments, Kulkarni said that he had remarked that "BJP does not believe in practicing political untouchability, and quoted Shri L K Advani's oft-repeated affirmation, 'If untouchability is wrong in the social sphere, it is equally wrong in the political sphere'."
"The anchor asked me if the BJP considered the Congress to be untouchable. My answer was 'No'. When he questioned me if the BJP would work together with the Congress, my response was: 'Yes, if the nation's interests demand so at some time in the future'."
Kulkarni, who issued the clarification apparently under pressure from the BJP leadership, maintained that "Congress is the BJP's principal adversary" in the elections to the 15th Lok Sabha and "along with our allies in the NDA, we have campaigned vigorously for the defeat of the Congress".
Expressing confidence that the people will give a decisive mandate for change and in favour of a BJP-led NDA government, he said, "As such, the question of the BJP and Congress working together in the post-May 16 scenario is simply unthinkable."
BJP also debunked any such possibility, with its spokesman Sidharth Nath Singh saying the two parties are "ideologically different, having no meeting ground."
He said it was "unlikely that Congress and BJP can work together" till Congress "follows dynastic politics", indulges in "vote-bank politics" and "shuns the very basics of Constitution like Article 370, uniform civil code".