Advani

New Delhi, Feb. 21: L.K. Advani was today chosen the NDA’s working chairman, a move that will see the BJP veteran follow Sonia Gandhi’s route to assert his authority over his party and the main Opposition combine.

The announcement on the eve of the budget session comes two days after Advani, who quit as Lok Sabha Opposition leader and is chairman of the BJP parliamentary party, expressed his desire to hang up his boots.

Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav has been made NDA convener, a post that was held so far by George Fernandes, who is seriously ill. Atal Bihari Vajpayee will remain chairman, though he is unwell too.

The parliamentary party chairman’s post was created for Advani by amending the BJP constitution after Sushma Swaraj took over from him as leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha in December.

Sources who had drafted the amendment said the language was lifted straight from the Congress’s constitution, which was tweaked in 1998 to designate Sonia parliamentary party chairperson shortly after she started heading the party. The aim of the amendment was to give Sonia, who was not an MP then and became one only after contesting her first election in 1999, complete control over the party’s parliamentary affairs as well.

Sonia is also UPA chairperson now. Today’s move making Advani the NDA boss brings him on a par with Sonia a second time.

At the NDA meeting this morning, many leaders felt that in the absence of both Vajpayee and Fernandes, the combine needed active members to conduct its day-to-day working when Parliament is in session.

But given Vajpayee’s pre-eminence in the BJP, S.S. Ahluwalia, the deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha, emphasised that “until he was fit enough to function normally”, Advani would stand in for him as a “second-in-command”.

Advani will now get a room in Parliament after he lost the chamber he earlier had as leader of the Opposition. The room had been allotted to Vajpayee in 2004 and will continue to have his name-plate, not Advani’s.

An NDA source claimed that since December there had been “enormous pressure” on the coalition’s leaders to “upgrade” Advani. As an unstated quid pro quo, the source said, the BJP had offered to make Yadav the convener.

Today, Yadav proposed Advani’s name. Shiv Sena’s Manohar Joshi and Akali Dal’s Naresh Gujral seconded it.

In January, BJP leaders had sounded Congress floor managers on giving cabinet status to Sonia and Advani as chairpersons of their parliamentary parties. But sources said the RSS was “furious” and nipped the idea in the bud.

On Friday, Advani had indicated at the BJP’s national council meeting in Indore that he should be “relieved”.

BJP sources said the budget session would be a “test” for Sushma and Arun Jaitley, the Rajya Sabha Opposition leader, to see if they could come out of Advani’s shadow.

and emerge as parliamentary leaders in their own right. Sushma said the NDA would move an adjournment motion on February 23 for a debate on price rise in both Houses.