NEW DELHI: The two-day conclave of the BJP to mark the beginning of its silver jubilee celebrations started here on Wednesday with the party skipping its “Hindutva” issues, including Ayodhya, and launching a scathing attack on the performance and policies of the Congress-led UPA government.

The BJP, which is under tremendous pressure from the Sangh Parivar to return to the ‘Hindutva’ fold, surprisingly avoided any reference to its pet issues like Ram Temple issue in its President L.K. Advani’s opening remarks, the political resolution and even the resolution to celebrate the party’s silver jubilee.

The BJP singled out the Congress for “advancing its agenda of minority appeasement”, and claimed that the “UPA, which was born on a non-mandate, is showing initial signs of disintegration.”

In his brief inaugural address, Mr Advani said the BJP would learn the “right lessons” from the “unexpected setback” in the Lok Sabha elections and forge ahead with even greater resolve as the “myopic” approach of the Congress portendsdanger for the unity and integrity of the country.

Asserting that the BJP has succeeded in demolishing the one-party supremacy of the Congress and transforming Indian polity into a bi-polar formation, Mr Advani said, “what is more, the BJP is clearly the stronger of the two poles in terms of ideological distinctiveness, organizationsl muscle and commitment to the basic values of democracy.”

“Until 1980 anti-Congressism was the main axis around which all the political developments and strategies of those days revolved. In sharp contrast, in 2005 we see anti-BJPism as the main axis around which contemporary political events are moving,” Mr Advani said adding “the unexpected setback that we received in the Lok Sabha elections last year does not in the least negate this truth.”

The National Executive of the party adopted two draft resolutions. One, on the party’s Silver Jubilee titled “Celebrate the party’s silver jubilee with pride and resolve” and another, a political resolution, titled “Congress Unmasked, UPA in disarray”.

The political resolution described the nearly 11-month-old UPA government as “one of the most non-performing and contradiction-ridden regimes since Independence”.

Describing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as “the weakest Prime Minister India has had”, the resolution said “This truth is accented by the deliberate manner in which the Congress President (Sonia Gandhi) has undermined the authority and prestige of the office and person of the Prime Minister and allowed herself to be projected as a ‘super Prime Minister’, one who exercises all authority with no accountability to Parliament.”

“The Congress heads the UPA, but provides no leadership to it,” the resolution said adding this was in stark contrast to the state of affairs when Atal Behari Vajpayee-led NDA was running the affairs at the Centre.

Claiming that UPA was showing initial signs of disintegration, the BJP said “with each passing week, the disarray in the UPA grows.”

The resolution described as “highly disturbing” the UPA regime’s either winding up many pro-development of the NDA government.—By arrangement with Tribune India/Chandigarh