Advani's yatra an attempt to fast-forward 2014 polls: Congress

The Congress party says that senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani's rath yatra, scheduled to begin Today, had a hidden agenda of trying to force a mid-term poll.

'The objective of the yatra is how 2014 can be fast forwarded to 2012, something which is not going to happen,' Congress spokesperson Manish Tewari said at a press briefing at the party headquarters here Monday.

Referring to the four major planks of the yatra - black money, Lokpal, judicial accountability and electoral reforms - Tewari said it was surprising that the BJP, which did not do anything on these issues when it was in power for six years, was raking them up now.

He said the yatra should have begun from either Bangalore or Dehradun, the capitals of the states where BJP had to change their chief ministers following allegations of corruption.

Taking a dig at Advani, Congress general secretary Digvijay Singh said 'till the time Advani continues to be the prime ministerial candidate, there is no no cause of concern' for the Congress.

'The management of the yatra of Advani or that of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi or Baba Ramdev was with the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS),' Singh told reporters here.

'Such yatras are helpful to the RSS as the Sangh and the BJP leaders are expert in collecting contributions for such ventures for their own benefit,' he added.