BJP leaders L.K. Advani (centre) and Arjun Munda (right) wave at the crowd during the Vijay Sankalp rally at morabadi grounds in ranchi on wednesday. Picture by Prashant Mitra our special correspondent

Ranchi, Oct. 15: Setting the Lok Sabha poll electioneering ball rolling, BJP leader L.K. Advani today came down heavily on Jharkhand chief minister Shibu Soren and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

He trashed Soren’s credit for the inception of Jharkhand knowing well that the JMM chief, now at the helm of affairs, was out to take political mileage out of being a Jharkhand movement hero. He cornered Prime Minister Manmohan Singh claiming that he indulged “in corrupt practices” to save the government at the Centre.

Advani said at the “Vijay Sankalp Rally” at the Morabadi grounds today that the Congress-led UPA government was giving a communal shape to terrorism by not executing Parliament attack case convict Afzal Guru.

The BJP leader made a scathing attack on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for “purchasing JMM MPs from Jharkhand” to save his government. “He has joined the league of Narasimha Rao, who had bought MPs from Jharkhand to survive the no-trust vote,” Advani said.

In his 35-minute speech cheered by the crowd, Advani pointed out that the movement protagonists wanted Jharkhand carved out of some districts of Orissa, Bengal and South Bihar.

“We knew that this demand would never be fulfilled. So, we adopted a practical approach and carved out Jharkhand by splitting a big state like Bihar,” he said.

“In fact, they had no members in Parliament when I introduced the bill to create Jharkhand. We wanted a separate state for good governance, development and security,” he said.

The former deputy Prime Minister had a message for his party men too. “We should be in politics not to earn money, but to serve the nation,” he said.

In fact, Advani, during a meeting with the state BJP leaders, wanted them to kick out the corrupt MLAs in the next elections.

Being in the hometown of ace cricketer M. S. Dhoni, Advani took the cricket lexicon to drive home his point. “You have international player like Dhoni. But I am a political player and do not forget the political number,” he said.

“The Congress should not forget its record of zero Lok Sabha seats in states like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in the 1977 general elections held soon after the emergency,” he said.

Advani also indicated that he would be taking anti-Muslim stand during electioneering.

Earlier, former external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha also castigated Manmohan Singh for pushing the country into a major economic crisis. He also took a snipe at Soren for “spending time in ribbon cutting only” and referred to the report published in The Telegraph today.

Leader of Opposition Arjun Munda said the UPA had killed the “great potential of Jharkhand”.