LK Advani withdraws resignation; RSS consolation for BJP founder-member

NEW DELHI: Senior BJP leader LKAdvani recalled his resignation from all party posts after, his party maintains, he spoke to RashtriyaSwayamsewakSangh (RSS) chief MohanBhagwat, who assured him that his views would be taken on board if and when the party decides to project a prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 general elections.


The irony of the RSS chief words assuring Advani, who had quit to ostensibly protest against the RSS’ increasing interference in BJP’s affairs was not lost on anyone, but the more important point is just what the last 36 hours have achieved or diminished for Advani. “What Mr Advani has done is largely just registered his protest. I don’t see any great possibility of him driving a wedge in BJP, he must have also realised that,” says Dr Suhas Palshikar, professor of politics at the university of Pune.

Party sources close to him, however, say that the timing of Advani’s resignation is important. “The party went ahead with the decision to anoint Narendra Modi as the party’s campaign committee chief despite Advani’s well known reservations about the matter,” said a senior general secretary in the party.

“He had to do something to register his protest and to show that he cannot be treated as a pushover when it comes to important decisions,” he added. “Once Modi starts carpet bombing the media through rallies, campaigns and his own projection, it would be too late to stop the juggernaut. It was now or never as a speed bump,” the leader added.

There are various theories whether this speed bump was at all effective. No specific commitment has been made to Advani on the projection of a prime ministerial candidate on behalf of the party in 2014, or any other change in work delegation. Modi remains firmly in the pre-eminent position accorded to him at the Goa convention.

“The decision taken at the Goa national executive was cleared by all and cannot be reversed,” said party vice-president Prabhat Jha, even as hectic parleys were on at LK Advani’s Prithviraj Road residence to hammer out a solution to the resignation imbroglio. So what has changed after the last 36 hours? Palshikar says nothing has changed, except Advani’s own realisation that he would be more effective from within the system.

“It is a difficult time for the party, to have such confusion just as the party is going through a churn and transition,” he says.

This is perhaps the reason for the grandstanding after all. To state positions and count your flock. His stock may have diminished in the last few days but he did cast a shadow over the party when it mattered and as the new man, Narendra Modi, steps in to take charge, a sulking patriarch is never a good accessory.

All Those Who Conducted the Negotiations...

Ex-BJP Chief Started the Day Early

Nitin Gadkari

The former BJP president was an unlikely mediator in the present crisis, as it was Lal Krishna Advani who was instrumental in him not getting a second term as party president. Nitin Gadkari had refused the role of campaign in-charge for the series of assembly polls in December, as proposed by the party patriarch because he “didn’t want any controversies”. However, it was his early morning meeting with Advani that set the ball rolling, roping in BJP leaders Sushma Swaraj, Uma Bharati and Ananth Kumar into the mix.