(From left) Rajnath Singh, LK Advani and Narendra Modi at the meeting in New Delhi on Monday. Picture by Ramakant Kushwaha

New Delhi, July 8: The BJP today attempted a second show of unity in four days, indicating L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi would be kept in the loop of key election-related decisions taken by Narendra Modi and Rajnath Singh.

Briefing the media after a morning meeting of the parliamentary board, general secretary Ananth Kumar made it clear that party chief Rajnath and Modi would spearhead the 2014 campaign. They will soon form subcommittees for various poll-related tasks such as writing the manifesto and other campaign literature.

The subcommittees, to be announced on July 17, are not expected to include Advani or Joshi, or even Opposition leaders Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj.

However, Kumar added that Advani and Joshi would not be left in the periphery but kept involved, the suggestion being they would be informed of the major decisions.

On Thursday, at the party’s first parliamentary board meeting after the Goa turbulence, the BJP had sat Advani and Modi next to each other to send out a message of unity.

Advani had last month skipped the national executive in Panaji that appointed Modi the party’s national campaign committee chief, and later quit his party posts in apparent protest.

Kumar said the BJP would have a two-pronged strategy: a political campaign with the attendant countrywide rallies and road shows, and a strengthening of the party organisation and galvanising of cadres to boost booth management.

The meeting decided the party would fight the polls on the “good governance” and “development” planks that Modi is increasingly trying to identify himself with, and not on “Hindutva” issues such as the Ram temple and abrogation of Article 370.

Two days ago, Modi’s political aide and Uttar Pradesh minder Amit Shah had revived the old promise of a Ram temple while visiting Ayodhya. Rajnath later distanced the party from Shah’s statement.

Although the BJP has not yet declared Modi its candidate for Prime Minister, Rajya Sabha Opposition leader and key strategist Arun Jaitley today claimed in a newspaper article that the 2014 polls would be “more presidential”, involving a “contest between personalities”. The obvious reference was to Modi and Rahul Gandhi.

“Irrespective of whether the two principal parties declare their candidates for the prime ministership in the next elections, the de facto leaderships are becoming clear,” Jaitley wrote.

“The nature of the contest would be more presidential…. The possible presidential-type contest between the two emerging personalities will make it worse for the Congress.”

In 1996, when the BJP named Atal Bihari Vajpayee as its candidate for Prime Minister, the build-up was not exactly robust because the cadre, high on Ayodhya’s electoral spin-offs, had mentally prepared itself for an Advani-led government.

In 1998, after the collapse of the United Front government, Pramod Mahajan took over the reins and pitched Vajpayee centre stage in a high-decibel campaign against a rather tentative Sonia Gandhi, still a political greenhorn.

“This time, the long Modi build-up has made our job easier because he is now a household name in most places. The Opposition is facilitating our task. Its leaders attack him every day on every issue…. They are campaigning effectively for Modi,” a party spokesperson claimed.

Modi is expected to visit Puri for the Rath Yatra festival and, later, Hyderabad for a rally in the first week of August. Thereafter, he will increasingly tour the country, a source said.