Advani recalls Pakistan visit

Presiding over his last national executive meeting as Bharatiya Janata Party President, L K Advani on Monday counted his controversial visit to Pakistan among the 12 defining years of his five decaded in political life, but did not make any reference either to Jinnah, the Hindutva ideology, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or the recent cash-for-query scam.

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"This is going to the last meeting of this Executive and the last meeting which I shall be presiding over," he said inaugurating the two-day national executive meeting of the party at the Rang Sharda auditorium in Mumbai. He said in the last 25 years BJP has "smashed the single party dominance of the Congress party and converted India's polity into a bi-polar one."

Under the six years of the National Democratic Alliance rule, India became a nuclear power and the economy has undergone a metamorphosis, Advani said.

Listing the 12 defining years of his more than half a century old political life, Advani mentioned the Ram Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya in 1990 and his six-day visit to Pakistan in 2005, "...during which I was asked to inaugurate a project for the restoration of Katas Raj Temple of the Mahabharata era." Advani is scheduled to step down after the party's three-day silver jubilee national convention concluding on December 30.