'Hope BJP won't reopen old wounds'

Dubbing senior BJP leader L.K. Advani the 'Bhishm Pitamah' of the NDA, Congress on Saturday hoped that the leader or his party will not do anything which impacts the country's secularism or "reopens old wounds".

Dubbing senior BJP leader L.K. Advani the 'Bhishm Pitamah' of the NDA, Congress on Saturday hoped that the leader or his party will not do anything which impacts the country's secularism or "reopens old wounds".

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The comment came in the backdrop of Advani's visit to Somnath to mark the anniversary of his controversial 1990 rath yatra to Ayodhya.

"L.K. Advani is the Bhishm Pitamah (patriarch) of NDA.... With wisdom of hindsight, I do hope that neither Advani nor his party does anything which impacts India's pluralism and secularism or in any manner reopens any of the old wounds which have taken a long time to heal," Congress spokesman Manish Tewari said.

He said 20 years ago during these very months, Advani endeavoured to lead a yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya. "The implications of that yatra, the communal conflagration it unleashed, the wounds it opened.... The nation has barely been able to surmount it," he said.