Arrest will not deter Advani Yatra: BJP honchos

HOSHANGABAD: BJP managers refused to accept on Saturday that B S Yeddyurappa’s arrest had paled L K Advani’s Jan Chetna Yatra devoted to twin issues of corruption and black money stashed away abroad that rolled into Hoshangabad in Madhya Pradesh today.Yeddyurappa’s arrest may have come as a shocker for the BJP brass but party leaders argued that Advani’s yatra had “larger dimensions” and that “they had not differentiated between their corruption and our corruption”.“Had we taken right steps in right time, such situation would not have arisen,” said BJP vice president Shanta Kumar, speaking to Express. Shanta Kumar, incidentally, was the first BJP leader to raise the issue of corruption in Karnataka when he was ‘Prabhari’ (in charge) of the state.“But I refuse to accept that this would affect Advaniji’s yatra. The yatra concerns larger national issues of corruption and black money, and hence remains relevant as ever,” he added.Another vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi spoke in similar vein. “Have we ever made a distinction between “hamara bharastachar aur unka bhrastachar” (our corruption andtheir corruption)? There’s a legal process to be followed and law would take its own course.”BJP general secretary and chief spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad, who is travelling with Advani, on the other hand, said that the party had removed Yeddyurappa as soon as the Lokayukta report became public. “We want to know the action that the Congress takes against P Chidambaram and others. I don’t need to remind them of the Supreme Court’s scathing observations,” he told Express. On his party, L K Advani, in one of his observations, indicated that the “party did take action when it was needed (after the Lokayukta report) in Karnataka”.