The issue was discussed threadbare in a meeting of senior leaders of the RSS and its affiliated organisations which concluded here today. The provocation for the discussion was the reports appearing in the media which suggested that the BJP had given up its core issues in order to appease its allies in its pursuit of power at the Centre.

The BJP's position on the matter was adumbrated by party president Kushabhau Thakre and general secretary K N Govindacharya. The threat from a leader with foreign origins, they reasoned, was a bigger threat and the BJP-led alliance needed to marshal all its resources to counter it. This would necessitate the need for the allies to approach the forthcoming elections as a more cohesive unit and under a common manifesto.

Themanifesto released by the BJP, they added, before the 1998 Lok Sabha elections was applicable for a period of five years and hence was still relevant. Moreover, the four issues were too identified with the party to be reiterated again and again.

The force of their argument seems to have convinced the RSS and its affiliates. There was a unanimity that the threat posed by the foreign forces had to be thwarted. ``After all, it is essential to note the direction in which the Vajpayee Government was heading to when it was pulled down as result of a sinister conspiracy,'' observed a senior RSS leader.

The VHP, when contacted, refused to comment on the BJP's readiness to fight the Lok Sabha elections under a common manifesto, which mean the burial of these core issues. ``Let the political parties release their manifestos first, observed Delhi VHP media-centre chief Lokesh Pratap Singh, ``But, the first agenda before us is to save the country from going into the clutches of foreign hands.''

He felt that theBJP, while going to the elections under a common agenda, could still bring out its own manifesto highlighting the issues its stands for. ``In any case, no political party in our country could survive by ignoring these issues,'' Singh claimed.