PTI

Rajkot, Apr 7: Sixteen years after his landmark 'Ram Rath' Yatra which changed the contours of Indian politics, senior BJP leader L K Advani on Thursday embarked on his sixth Yatra invoking Lord Ram and appealing to Muslims to abandon their claim over the disputed site in Ayodhya.

The launch of the 6,000 km long 'Bharat Suraksha Yatra' on Ram Navami day in the presence of Hindutva poster boy and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Ministers of other party-ruled states and senior BJP leaders was replete with ideological symbols including portraits of Lord Ram and a hooded terrorist in the background, Advani aiming an arrow from a large bow, blowing of conch shells and chanting of Vedic hymns.

But the post-Jinnah Advani, who has expressed a keenness to change the party's hardliner anti-minorities image, was far from aggressive. Even the BJP's historic 1989 Palampur resolution endorsing the Ram Janambhoomi movement was not anti-Muslim, he asserted before the gathering which included Muslims donning skull caps both on the dais and the audience.

He also expressed concern over "Congressization" of BJP and factionalism and corruption in the party and counselled the partymen to "tread carefully."