No More on Lok Paritran

I have grown weary of all the Lok Paritran bashing. I get the feeling that I've needlessly lavished serious criticism on an outfit that doesn't even merit a cursory glance. On the other hand, I am appalled to note that LP has secured about 10,000 and 12000 votes at Mylapore and Anna Nagar respectively. How on earth did so many people take them seriously?

As the title says, I intend to discuss LP one last time here, and then move on. Mr Chella Dorai has brought to my attention that LP has a generous hindutva touch to it. If you visit http://www.india-forum.com/forums/lofiversion/index.php?t87.html and check out the 3rd post, you'll find that Tanmay Rajpurohit, one of LP's big shots, gave a lecture in the USA about Hindutva forces being subdued by a 'FUD(Fear Uncertainty Doubt) strategy'.

Anybody can detect a distinct Hindu flavour in LP. The word 'Paritrana' is Bhagavad Gita-inspired. Right at the top of their website, is a quote from the Rigveda. Added to this is their rather improper use of the term 'Jagatguru'. In fact, my first LP blog came with a brazen christian overtone as a reaction.

If LP is oriented towards Hindutva, why on earth did they have to form a new party?! Why couldn't they have joined the BJP straightaway? That would be the logical choice considering that BJP already has an established cadre base. That would have saved them the enormous trouble of grabbing people's attention.

Why are they playing this 'soft hindutva' card? I can only think of one reason. The BJP has never had wide public acceptance. And Hindutva is frowned upon by many sections of our society. LP wants to come up as a broad plausible alternative. And at the same time, Hindutva is deeply embedded in its psyche. So, the course of action is clear - Float a new party, claim to be a novelty, keep mum about ideology but craftily cling to Hindutva all along! I can only hope that LP is not playing this game consciously or unconsciously.

At best, such behaviour would be immature. A political party should not be sly or apologetic about its intentions. If at all they subscribe to Hindutva, let them be frank about it. Instead, choosing to daub their website with needless Hindu/sanskrit allusions only serves to make their stand ambiguous.

God save our polity!!