Advani

New Delhi, Dec. 11: The BJP today fought shy of backing L.K. Advani’s renewed claim as the party’s official candidate for Prime Minister in the next Lok Sabha elections amid reports that Atal Bihari Vajpayee is upset with his former deputy’s comments.

BJP president Rajnath Singh called on Vajpayee today, apparently to pacify him.

Advani was quoted as saying in a television interview that “while I had given his (Vajpayee’s) name for prime ministership in the first place, I don’t expect him to return that favour to me”.

The issue is now threatening to overshadow the BJP’s national executive later this month when Rajnath will be formally crowned party president.

The party’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, parried repeated questions on whether the BJP supports Advani’s claim that the leader of Opposition is traditionally the “Prime Minister-in-waiting”.

“I have nothing to say,” said Malhotra as reporters pressed him to explain why the BJP has repeatedly refused to back Advani’s claims. Malhotra was not alone in avoiding such questions.

Party general secretary Arun Jaitley, too, beat a hasty retreat when television crews crowded around him this afternoon in Parliament.

This is not the first time Advani is making the assertion on the top post. When Advani handed over the reigns of the BJP to Rajnath in Mumbai earlier this year, he said he was neither retiring from politics nor giving up his ambition for the top job.

He repeated the claim again in an interview to a magazine. This is the third time in a year that he has asserted he is to be the party’s Prime Minister candidate.

On all three occasions, the BJP has refused to comment on whether it supports Advani’s claim or not. Rajnath has sidestepped the issue each time, saying it is “too early” to make any such declaration.

But he has privately maintained that as long as Vajpayee is politically active, it is impossible for anyone to declare an alternative candidate. “If anyone has to declare who is to be our next prime ministerial candidate, it is Vajpayeeji who would do it,” a party source said.

The only BJP leader to have reacted to Advani’s statement was the party’s Tamil Nadu unit president, L. Ganesan, who said the remarks were correct in the context they were made.

“What Advaniji has said is correct. He cannot expect Vajpayeeji to propose his name. It is a subtle statement of Advaniji with all respect to Vajpayeeji. Any person will answer the question in the same way in the context it was asked. Vajpayeeji and Advaniji continue to be close friends.”