Modi at the parliamentary board meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday. Picture by Yasir Iqbal

New Delhi, May 21: Narendra Modi started his day in Delhi with a breakfast meeting with L.K. Advani, seen as a hurdle to his prime ministerial ambitions, and ended it with a visit to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Prime Minister who had advised him to follow “raj dharma” after the 2002 Gujarat riots — a blot that refuses to wash off.

In between, Modi attended the parliamentary board meeting and called on party president Rajnath Singh and his predecessor Nitin Gadkari.

The flurry of one-to-one meetings is part of the Gujarat chief minister’s effort to mend fences and clear the obstacles in his path before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, sources said.

“Had a wonderful meeting with Advaniji on arrival at Delhi,” Modi tweeted after the 40-minute meeting at the leader’s 30 Prithviraj Road residence. “Now heading to meet Gadkariji,” he further tweeted.

There was no word on how his meeting with Gadkari, the RSS favourite who failed to get a second term as party chief after corruption charges hit at the last minute, went. Or that with Rajnath, with whom he had lunch.

Before flying back to Gujarat, he paid a courtesy call to Vajpayee, BJP’s father figure forced by illness to retire from active politics. The visit was about symbolism, but the one-to-one with Advani was pegged as the most significant of all his individual meetings today. Modi appeared more than excited afterwards.

Once a mentor, Advani’s relationship with Modi has soured so much that reports of the older leader contemplating a shift out of Gujarat for the 2014 elections — Advani is the Gandhinagar MP — surface repeatedly.

Party sources believe that if there is one leader who could stand in the path of Modi’s projection as the prime ministerial candidate in 2014, it is Advani, who remains a strong contender for the Prime Minister’s post in the party. Modi’s effort to spend time with the leader and describe it as a “wonderful meeting” was seen as an exercise to improve ties.

The other meeting the Gujarat chief minister sought to publicise was that with Vajpayee. “Shall meet Atal Ji in sometime. Looking forward!” he tweeted in the afternoon. There was no follow-up tweet after the meeting. The BJP chooses to be discreet about the health of the former Prime Minister, who, according to sources, is very ill and suffers from memory loss. His room at 6 Krishna Menon Marg has been turned into a virtual hospital, sources say.

The visit was seen in the party as a gesture to secure the blessings of the party’s tallest leader ahead of 2014. “He needs his (Vajpayee) blessings. Modi is aspiring to step into the shoes of Atalji,” a BJP leader explained.

In the middle of his meetings with party elders, Modi used his first date with the parliamentary board, the BJP’s highest decision-making body, to advocate harnessing the social media to reach out to youths. While the chief minister’s managers are already very active on the Web and exploit the social media to the hilt, he advised the party to use it more to connect with the youths “who are yearning for change”.

“Modi suggested that the spread and reach of social media and social networking should be used to reach out to the people, especially the youth,” parliamentary board member Ananth Kumar said.

Munde daughter

Senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde’s daughter, Pankaja Munde-Palve, was today appointed chief of the Maharashtra unit’s Yuva Morcha as state BJP chief Devendra Fadnavis unveiled a new team that will lead the party into the 2014 polls.

One of Munde’s three children, Pankaja is an MLA from his constituency Parli in Beed district of Marathawada. She became the first woman MLA from Beed in 2009. Munde’s nephew Dhananjay had rebelled against his uncle last year over the prominence given to Pankaja in the district.