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New Delhi, Mar 11: Pushed to Opposition in a rout blamed on his party’s ‘India Shining’ election campaign for the 2004 general elections, senior BJP leader L K Advani on Friday unveiled a new motto- ‘India Rising’ - for his organization following New Delhi’s landmark nuclear deal with Washington.
Ahead of elections in five states, Advani insisted his party was capable of overcoming the setbacks it suffered from its ‘India Shining’ campaign two years ago.
"Well, no regrets. To err is human. We are capable of learning from our past mistakes," he said in his address at an India Today conclave.
The former deputy prime minister, credited with taking the BJP to the country’s political centre-stage with his Ayodhya yatra, admitted the BJP’s ‘India Shining’ was too posh to retain power.
"Looking back in introspection, I feel that if only I had titled my 2004 yatra as ‘India Rising,’ rather than ‘India Shining’ -- indeed, its meaning in Hindi, Bharat Uday, connoted India Rising and not India Shining -- the results probably would have been different," he remarked.
The BJP leader, who lent support to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s nuclear agreement with US President George W Bush with a few reservations over the nuclear separation plans, however, said he found the ruling Congress to be silent about the accomplishments of the NDA.