Two days before the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Foundation Day celebrations, and exactly a week before the start of polling for the Lok Sabha elections 2019, veteran party leader and former party president LK Advani has said that the “saffron party has never considered political opponents as ‘anti-national’ or ‘enemies'”.

In a blog written on Thursday, Advani, one of the tallest veterans of both the RSS and BJP, said, “Right from its inception, the BJP has never regarded those who disagree with us politically as our ‘enemies’, but only as our adversaries.”

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“Similarly, in our conception of Indian nationalism, we have never regarded those who disagree with us politically as ‘anti-national’,” he added.

Stressing that the party has been “committed to freedom of choice of every citizen at personal as well as political level”, the 91-year-old Advani said “defence of democracy and democratic traditions, both within the Party and in the larger national setting, has been the proud hallmark of the BJP”.

Though Advani didn’t take any names, his remarks were interpreted as veiled criticism of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.

Advani, who served as the 7th Deputy Prime Minister of India in the first NDA government, said that the BJP has been in the forefront of “demanding protection of independence, integrity, fairness and robustness of all our democratic institutions, including the media”.

He also said that the BJP’s “heroic struggle” against Emergency was to uphold the triad of Satya (truth), Rashtra Nishtha (dedication to the Nation) and Loktantra (democracy, both within and outside the Party)…Sanskritik Rashtravad (Cultural Nationalism) and Su-Raj (good governance)”.

Advani also thanked the people of Gandhinagar from where he was elected six times to the Lok Sabha since 1991. The nonagenarian was reportedly denied a ticket from the constituency this time and was replaced by BJP president Amit Shah. Besides Advani, the party also denied a ticket to 85-year-old Murli Manohar Joshi.

BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya said that both Advani and Joshi had themselves refused to contest.

In his blog, Advani said that 6 April Foundation Day is an “important occasion for all of us in the BJP to look back, look ahead and look within”.

Advani also expressed gratitude to Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and “other great, inspiring and self-less leaders” of the BJP while adding that he will continue to adhere to the BJP’s principle of ‘Nation First, Party Next, Self Last’.

He called on the electorate and “all the stakeholders in Indian democracy” to strengthen the democratic edifice of India in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.