The year 2002 is about to end. For the BJP, it has been an unforgettable year. It started with a series of electoral setbacks. We lost Puniab, Uttaranchal as well as Uttar Pradesh.
The year has, however, ended with an electoral triumph - Narendra Modi's victory in Gujarat - which has left our political opponents stunned and stupefied, unable even to comprehend what exactly has floored them !
If the year opened with our supporters sunk in a mood of despair and demoralisation, the year is winding up with BJP activists verily on top of the world, all set to face the coming battles with confidence and determination.
The BJP Government in Gujarat under Shri Keshubhai Patel and later under Shri Narendra Modi has been an honest government, and a caring government. These last five years have seen Gujarat face a series of grave natural calamities - cyclones, floods, drought and a terrible earthquake. The State Government succeeded in galvanising the people against these calamities and everyone from within the country and from abroad who has visited Gujarat during these years has had nothing but praise and plaudits for the State Government.
The State Government's performance in respect of the Narmada, and generally speaking, on the water front, had particularly endeared it to the people.
Even if there had been no Godhra, Narendra Modi's Government would have secured a renewed mandate because of these achievements.
It is, however, the campaign of calumny and hatred unleashed by our adversaries in the wake of Godhra and its aftermath against the Gujarat police, the Gujarat administration. the BJP Government in the State and personally against Shri Narendra Modi which made the Gujarat electorate really angry and which has given us this landslide victory.
I do not know if our opponents realise this. At least from the reactions we have been hearing after the results have been announced, it does not appear so. 'You have won because of Hindutva' that's the common refrain. Let them realise that if they continue to talk derisively about Hindutva thus, it will continue to cost them dearly. Party President, Shri Venkaiah has rightly said that Hindutva is a noble concept, and the people are not going to let secularism become just a cover for Hindubashing. Nor should it become a euphemism for 'minorityism'.
In 1980, Prime Minister, Mrs. Gandhi appointed Dr. Gopal Singh as Chairman of a high-powered Commission on Minorities. It is he who coined the word minorityism and warned:
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'All history is witness to the fact that both Minorityism and Communalism are the deadliest enemies of those who practice them. One would hate to live and participate in a society where one is condemned to the status of a permanent, statutory minority for reasons only of birth, and all that goes with it - religion, sex, caste, colour or place of birth - within the same national home!'
