The BJP may have sensed an opportunity in the ASI affidavit on Ram Sethu but its erstwhile Hindutva face, Uma Bharati, has said the party and L K Advani lack credibility to speak on the issue.

“Had Advani and his party not opposed the Sethusamudram Project, work on it would have stopped months ago. Their past record on Ram Mandir ensured that Ram Sethu failed to become a mass movement,” Bharati said on Thursday. “For God’s sake take part but don’t politicise the issue,” was her advice to her former party.

Continuing her tirade against Advani, she said she had opposed his Rath Yatra, saying the movement should be left to saints and religious leaders. “The Ram Mandir movement would have taken a different shape had he not undertaken the Rath Yatra,” she said. “Had the temple been built with support of Muslims, religion would have forever gone out of politics in India. It would have done what the partition could not achieve,” she said referring to communal riots.

Bharati suggested she and her fledgling Bharatiya Janshakti were better qualified to take up Ram Sethu because she “would never make it a political agenda”. She has already undertaken a padyatra demanding that the project be scrapped in its present version.

Bharati had announced that she would undertake an indefinite fast from September 20 if the affidavit was not withdrawn and the Centre failed to apologise for hurting the sentiments of Hindus. On Thursday, she said now that the Centre had decided to file a supplementary affidavit, she would not undertake the fast but continue to campaign against the project because Ram is a symbol of faith.