NEW DELHI (AFP) - The embattled leadership of India's Hindu nationalist BJP party has begun to flex its muscles, warning its members against criticising the government and asserting its dominant role within the ruling coalition.

Home Minister LK Advani, number two in the cabinet led by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, told party workers at the weekend to behave like members of "the ruling party" and "shed their old mindset of being in the opposition."

"Advani's statement was clearly a warning to workers to stop criticising the government in public," said Kiran Saxena, a professor of political science at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

"We have seen several instances of party workers criticising senior cabinet ministers at non-party fora and in the media."

Financial scandals

A senior party official, however, insisted today that there was "no negative implication" to the home minister's statement.

"What Advani said was that the party has a big role to play now and has to gear up to play a bigger role in the coming days," BJP general secretary Narendra Modi said.

"So workers should apply themselves to face this challenge."

The Vajpayee government has been taking a fair degree of flak in recent weeks over a spate of financial scandals and its handling of landmark summit talks with Pakistan in Agra.

The worst affected by the scandals have been the Indian middleclass - the prime votebank of the BJP.

Despite presenting the best received annual budget of recent years in February, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha has been facing a barrage of resignation demands.

Sensitive new reforms relaxing controls on labour lay-offs and government downsizing have been opposed by a vocal section of the BJP, which also criticised the trimming of interest rates on state-run saving schemes.

There have also been calls within the party to withdraw a series of confidence-building measures that India offered tp Pakistan ahead of the Agra summit, which collapsed without an agreement.

Three-day conclave

At a three-day BJP conclave over the weekend, Vajpayee said Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's performance at the summit had shown him to be "quite clueless" about history, politics and rules of international diplomacy.

"Vajpayee's strong statements about Musharraf would have been aimed at stemming this criticism," Saxena said.

"I am sure it went down well the BJP rank and file."

During the weekend conclave, Advani also urged the party to modernise and adopt a more "scientific" work culture ahead of upcoming elections in two politically crucial states - Uttar Pradesh and Punjab.

"The party needs to increase its appeal within the middle classes. The party did not do well in the May elections to five provinces. So the coming polls are crucial, especially Uttar Pradesh," Saxena said.

The party meeting also proposed a harder line on readmitting coalition allies who have broken away from the BJP-dominated ruling National Democratic Alliance.

"The smaller parties in the coalition of late have been putting considerable pressure on the BJP. By laying down some rules, the BJP is increasing its clout," Saxena said.