Panjim, June 7: L.K. Advani skipped today’s session of BJP office-bearers here ahead of the party’s June 8-9 national executive meeting that might appoint Narendra Modi as the campaign committee head for the general election.
Advani had resisted the move but the decks seemed to have been cleared when Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh joint general secretary Suresh Soni met BJP president Rajnath Singh on Thursday. Soni is said to have agreed “in principle” to Modi’s anointment on the parent organisation’s behalf.
M. Venkaiah Naidu today told journalists that Advani was “unwell”. A member of Advani’s family called Rajnath yesterday and said he felt “weak” from the Delhi heat and would skip the first day’s meeting.
Asked if he would come tomorrow, an aide said: “Let’s see how he feels.”
“It would be untrue to say Advani is not disturbed with the kind of drum-beating (for Modi as the party’s candidate for Prime Minister) that is going on,” a party source said.
“Remember, this is a country where (then Congress president) Dev Kant Barooah had said, ‘India is Indira, Indira is India’ (during the Emergency). Indira was routed in the elections that followed.”
The source added: “There is a difference between simulating support for an individual and letting things take their natural course. In Atalji’s (Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s) case, the process happened naturally and had a flavour that is cherished even today. Drum-beating does not necessarily ensure electoral success.”
A minority in the BJP believes that Modi’s projection could see either a spurt in seats, or stagnation and even a fall, especially if the Muslims rallied behind the Congress.
Advani’s absence did not deter Modi’s growing band of cheerleaders today. Last evening, the meeting’s host and Goa chief minister, Manohar Parrikar, had started the chorus in favour of his Gujarat counterpart’s elevation.
In 2009, Parrikar, short-listed by the Sangh as a candidate for BJP president, had blown his prospects by comparing Advani to “pickle gone sour” and advising him to ride into the political sunset.
Smriti Irani, Rajya Sabha member and the central BJP’s minder for Goa, has claimed a “groundswell of positive sentiments” in Modi’s favour. Another upper House member, Balbir Punj, said Modi was ready for a “larger role”.
Ironically, Advani was Modi’s prime endorser when the Gujarat chief minister was up against the wall 11 years ago. That too was in Goa and Modi’s continuance as chief minister was opposed by then Prime Minister Vajpayee.
On the eve of the April 2002 national executive meeting, BJP ally Telugu Desam had lobbed a bombshell by demanding Modi’s removal in view of the February-March violence against Muslims in Gujarat.
Brajesh Mishra, Vajpayee’s closest aide in the Prime Minister’s Office, had suggested that Modi’s removal was a given. Modi stayed away from the first day’s meeting to facilitate “free and frank” discussions.
To Vajpayee’s shock, his closest political confidant, Pramod Mahajan, gave the first shout in Modi’s favour, saying he would not quit no matter who wanted him to. The rest of the pack followed. Vajpayee stood isolated. Advani had put up the members to back Modi.
Hours later, Vajpayee, the BJP’s “secular” face, denounced Muslims at a public meeting in Goa alleging that instead of preaching Islam through “peaceful” means, they propagated their religion through “money and terror”.
Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, then an MP and chief of the party youth wing and now a darling of secularists, told the same rally that “if an attempt is made to equate Godhra with what happened thereafter, it will amount to a betrayal of cultural nationalism”.
