The Prime Minister's New Assertiveness has not given the impression that the Government has a grip on the situation. BJP's friends and associates continue to embarrass the BJP-led Government and their rabid statements go unchecked by any BJP leader ...

... Events, as they have been unfolding in Gujarat, are a chilling replay of those leading to the demolition of the Babari Masjid. A BJP Government in Lucknow totally disregarded any sane advice, while various people claimed that it was the Muslim groups, which were aggravating the situation in Ayodhya. Various BJP associates had continued to make outrageous statements while no efforts were made by the saner members of the Sangh Parivar to restrain them. And the Babari Masjid was brought down in the presence of the BJP leaders.

The Babari Masjid had been converted into a symbol of Muslim domination, accentuated by the repeated emphasis on what was called Congress's appeasement policies towards the Muslims for purely political reasons. The Christian conversions are similarly being linked to colonial domination and obliquely to the fact that the Congress president Sonia Gandhi is a Christian. There is an effort to dissociate the VHP from the Hindu Jagran Manch, which was responsible for the attacks in Gujarat. But while the VHP stops short of advocating violence, the HJM has no reservations about resorting to strong-arm action. According to VHP's Acharya Giriraj Kishore, of the minority communities, the Parsis and the Jewish communities are not converts, while 99 per cent of Muslims and Christians are converts. According to the VHP leader's reasoning, conversions which took place over a hundred years go, are still rated as conversions three generations after the event. In the same breath, he adds that conversions include elements of force, allurement or blandishment.

With such associates, the BJP is unlikely to retain any of the new supporting parties it had gathered ... Divisive politics have been allowed to spawn, targeting another minority community which is too small to threaten the majority in any way and has a minimal influence in politics ... At one time it was the BJP's allies who were making the BJP Government seem ineffective. Now it is the BJP's affiliates which are making its leaders look an ineffectual lot who are not up to the rigours of administration. The BJP has no one else to blame but its Parivar. (Source: The Pioneer, 10 January, 1999)