Not BJP's PM candidate, LK Advani likely to announce

NEW DELHI: Faced with the spectre of non-cooperation of the Sangh Parivar and his party, senior BJP veteran LK Advani is likely to announce that he is not in the prime ministerial race before he embarks on his rath yatra, aimed at mobilising public opinion against corruption.

The announcement, according to RSS sources, is likely to be made as early as next week, and is intended to remove the confusion on his intentions within BJP, and the larger parivar, following his decision to set off on yet another yatra. Advani's unilateral declaration is said to have been made without any in-house consultation, and was handed over as a fait-accompli to the party leadership.

RSS, it is learnt, is deeply upset with Advani's latest moves, which, it feels, had reopened the leadership issue. The anti-graft mobilisation campaign, it was noted, ended up conveying the impression that Advani was trying to resurrect his political career by forcing his colleagues to accept him as their prime ministerial candidate again in 2014.

Top leaders of the Sangh Parivar are learnt to have warned Advani against going ahead with the yatra plan, but he decided to persist with it, ignoring the pieces of advice rendered by his confidants. RSS is said to have asked BJP not to deviate from the script prepared by it to back Advani's yatra.

The Sangh leadership, it is learnt, has told Advani that his yatra announcement would have carried weight and conviction had he withdrawn himself from the prime ministerial sweepstakes, and settled for the role of a statesman to guide the party in mounting an effective challenge to the Congress-led UPA during the next general elections.

In the absence of any such announcement, Advani appeared to have been cast in the role of a person who was reluctant to give up hopes of becoming the prime minister well passed 86.

Confronted with the prospect of his yatra receiving a less-than-enthusiastic support from within his own party, Advani has been persuaded to declare that he was not in the running for the post of the prime minister. "He is likely to make the announcement next week. If he does not, we will see what can be done,'' said a top RSS leader.

Advani may withdraw from the prime ministerial race, but that he was bent upon muddying equations within his party was apparent when he came out in the open backing the US think-tank report which saw Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the party's potential prime ministerial candidate.

"Now, American lawmakers and the State Department are being primed for the return of BJP to power in New Delhi, with Modi at the helm as prime minister, following what US analysts say is a 'precipitous' decline in the Congress party's fortunes due to a string of corruption scandals,'' Advani wrote on his blog on Friday.