.. As far as our party is concerned, we have always taken a conscious political line to support and protect the minorities, which we will continue in the future. But our approach to the protection of minorities is different from the one taken by Congress and others.

We do not think that having electoral alliances with some minority parties is necessary for protecting minority interests. Whenever we came to power, our governments have consistently taken administrative and legal actions which helped the minorities in their social and economic development.

This has happened since 1957 when we relaxed the  strict rules regarding building of places of worship of minority community to the land reforms which benefitted all these sections. (Source: The Indian Express, 13 January, 1998)