Indian-American Bobby Jindal, the rising star of the Republicans, has asked his partymen to end their "navel gazing" over the 2008 election debacle and don the role as the opposition to President Barack Obama [Images] and the Democratic Party.

"Let's agree on this tonight, the time for talking about the past is now over," Jindal, the charismatic Governor of Louisiana told 1,200 people attending a House GOP fundraiser here yesterday, same time when Obama was addressing his second post-election press conference at the White House.

"It has been healthy for Republicans to look in the mirror. It has been healthy for us to realise and admit the mistakes of the past.

"We have done that quite a bit. I personally have done that quite a bit since the election last fall. It's now been close to five months since the last election," he said at the $2,500-per-plate dinner.

The 37-year-old Republican leader, widely considered a potential 2012 Grand Old Party (GOP) presidential candidate, added, 'It's time to declare our time of introspection and navel gazing officially over. It's time to get on with the business of charting America's future. So as of now, be it hereby resolved, that we will focus on America's future, and on standing up for fiscal sanity... before it is too late," Jindal, who had earlier delivered the Republican party's rebuttal to Obama's State of the Union address last month, said.

Jindal credited his former colleagues for standing united in opposing Obama's policies.

"Thanks primarily to the Republicans in the House of Representatives, the Republican Party has once again decided to be the conservative party in this country," Jindal said.

Jindal, who served two terms in the US House, returned to Washington to help his former colleagues raise more than $ 6million for the 2010 midterm elections.

So far, Jindal has sidestepped questions about him contesting the 2012 elections. But yesterday he seemed to be laying the groundwork in case he eventually decides the political climate is right, CNN reported.

A video of favourable back-to-back TV reports about Jindal preceded his introduction to the audience. And Jindal used his remarks to deep-pocketed Republican donors to emphasise his vision for how the GOP can get back on track. He also made a point to criticise Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a "spending spree" that he said "is costing the taxpayers more than the Iraq war, more than the Vietnam War, and, near and dear to my heart, even more than the Louisiana Purchase."