LK Advani’s Blog

I have been traveling constantly these days. Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh; 15 February), Madanapally (Andhra Pradesh; 27 February) and Bidar (Karnataka; 28 February) were, respectively, the places where I addressed my 31th, 32st and 33rd Vijay Sankalp Rallies. My party asked me to tour the entire country as a part of its mass contact programme, prior to the formal election campaign, and organized my first Vijay Sankalp Rally in Jabalpur in February 2008. These rallies have taken me to practically every part of the country, from Pasighat in Arunachal Pradesh to Calicut (Kozhikode) in Kerala, and from Dumka in Jharkhand to Vashim in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.

In the last week alone, I have traveled to Gandhinagar in Gujarat, which is my own Lok Sabha constituency; to Mumbai, where my party workers donated to me a purse of Rs. 11.11 crore, collected from nearly 50,000 donors, towards the election fund; to Bangalore, where I addressed an anti-terrorism rally of over one lakh students, and to Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh where I participated in a large rally organized by the Scheduled Castes Morcha of the BJP.

Although every event gave me deep satisfaction, there was one that brought alive many precious and deeply cherished memories associated with a defining period not only in my personal life but also in the life of India. It was when I was invited by the Government of Karnataka to inaugurate the Freedom Park in Bangalore on 27th February. This is where Click to Read More

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Friends, thanks for the enthusiastic response to my inaugural post.

I was wondering what to share with you today, because there is so much to share. Elections to the 15th Lok Sabha are fast approaching. Naturally, much of my communication will be political in nature and election-oriented. However, I must confess that I do not regard politics to be the be-all-and-end-all of our national life. Indeed, politics - and all else in public life -become meaningful and fulfilling only when they are guided by higher values and ideals rooted in India’s spiritual heritage. And there is so much that politicians and those in other professions have to learn from India’s spiritual masters, both ancient and modern.

A few days ago, a new book landed on my table - The Monk Without Frontiers - Reminiscences of Swami Ranganathananda. It is the latest publication of the Ramakrishna Mission, and has been brought out to commemorate Swamiji’s birth centenary (2008). Swami Ranganathananda, as I have recorded in my autobiography (My Country My Life , published last year by Click to Read More

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Welcome, friends, to my blog. My young colleagues who have created this website told me that a political portal without a blog is like a letter without a signature. I quickly accepted this compelling logic.

I am excited by the idea of using the Internet as a platform for political communication and, especially, for election campaign. As someone who has had the good fortune of participating, either as a campaigner or as a candidate, in every single general election in India since the first one held in 1952, I have seen how the tools of communication have evolved. As far communication is concerned, I am technology-agnostic. My philosophy in this matter is simple: anything that works, deserves to be welcomed. In my own political life spanning six decades, I have enthusiastically embraced every new communication technology - from the early simple Casio digital diary to i-pod and i-phone.

In the first general election, when as a 25-year-old political activist I campaigned in Rajasthan for the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, which had been founded in the previous year by Dr. Syama Prasad Mukherjee, even printing a rudimentary handbill was a novelty. Let me recount an interesting incident here. My party had entrusted me with the responsibility of managing the campaign in Kotputli. After studying the problems of the region, I prepared some literature explaining how the Jana Sangh would try to solve these problems if the people elected our candidate. I had also brought copies Click to Read More

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