RSS ideologue K N Govindacharya on Wednesday lambasted BJP’s prime ministerial candidate L K Advani, saying he was as ineffective as the home minister as Shivraj Patil is now.

“It’s difficult to decide who is better or worse,” he said, adding Advani did little despite having the chance to do so much as the home minister during NDA’s six-year rule. “He had the chance to attack terrorist camps in PoK when Parliament was attacked, but he went weak in the knees.”

Govindacharya was in Bhopal on Wednesday, a day after the announcement that he would launch a new political outfit on January 14, and till then head Uma Bharti’s Bharatiya Janshakti.

“Neither did he table a white paper on the ISI’s role in promoting terrorism nor create a national registry of citizens. Slaughterhouses increased despite him talking about a total ban on cow slaughter. Also, the liquor mafia strengthened during his time,” he told The Indian Express.

“He must have felt he was missing the bus,” Govindacharya said when asked to comment on Advani’s sudden demand for a judicial probe into the alleged torture of Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, after avoiding comments on the sensitive matter for a long time. He described as “sheer opportunism,” the BJP’s position on Hindutva, and said the Malegaon blast issue had shown how weak the BJP leadership was. When Rajnath Singh’s photograph with Sadhvi Pragya Singh appeared in newspapers, the BJP president first said he was embarrassed, but later got around to accepting her.

... contd.