(Top) Advani (picture by Ramakant Kushwaha) in Delhi on Monday; Chidambaram

New Delhi, Aug. 6: Jayalalithaa saved the day for L.K. Advani, courtesy of Jaswant Singh.

Singh, the NDA’s vice-presidential nominee, called on the Tamil Nadu chief minister in Chennai yesterday. As a senior minister in the NDA government and an A.B. Vajpayee confidant, Singh used his personal goodwill with Jayalalithaa to pull the coalition out of the crises that usually erupted when she felt slighted by a “lesser” minister like Pramod Mahajan.

Hours after Singh’s visit, Jayalalithaa announced she would support him in tomorrow’s Vice-President election in which he faces Hamid Ansari. This despite her ally, Naveen Patnaik, declaring the Biju Janata Dal would abstain from voting in tomorrow’s election.

Jayalalithaa and Patnaik had forged a pact over several issues, the last being their joint sponsorship of P.A. Sangma as a presidential nominee.

For the BJP, wracked by a self-inflicted crisis a day, Jayalalithaa’s support for a party candidate was unexpected succour.

Especially when the party had questions to answer on a blog Advani posted yesterday that virtually wrote off the BJP as a prospective contender for power at the Centre in 2014. It was Advani who pushed for contesting the presidential and vice-presidential polls on a “point of principle”, despite knowing that numbers were stacked up on the UPA’s side.

Unfazed with the Janata Dal (United) and the Shiv Sena switching sides to support Pranab Mukherjee in the presidential election, Advani insisted that Ansari should not be given a walkover.

The BJP’s consolation was that it got the Dal (United) and the Sena back on its side to vote for Singh and added Jayalalithaa too.

Stung by Advani’s statement that a “non-Congress, non-BJP PM heading a government (in 2014) supported by one of these two principal parties (the Congress or the BJP) is, however, feasible”, BJP sources said the RSS had conveyed to them that one of their seniors would issue a response “shortly”, either tangentially or openly to answer the veteran.

In 2011, when Advani embarked on his rath yatra — against the Sangh’s express wish — RSS sarsanghachalak Mohanrao Bhagwat had reportedly hinted to him that he should clarify he was not in the running for prime ministership before embarking on his roadshow. Advani had visited Bhagwat in Nagpur.

But in a circumambulatory fashion, Advani — normally a clear thinker and a cogent speaker — said he had gained more than he imagined by his association with the parivar and, therefore, he did not hanker after posts.

Later, it was learnt that in the same meeting, Bhagwat had insinuated that the process of generational change in the Sangh outfits, including the BJP, would be effected only if those who were 70 and above stopped contesting elections.

Advani will be nearly 87 when India polls in 2014. If Bhagwat stuck to his norm, he would not qualify for a ticket, as also an entire generation in the BJP’s phalanx that includes Murli Manohar Joshi, Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh.

“His latest blog is a way of retaliating against the RSS,” a BJP source said.

“He has told them they cannot expect him to sit around and twiddle his thumbs,” said another.

Advani’s aides have wondered why his age was held against him when he was in the “pink of health” and capable of greater physical endurance than his younger colleagues.

A favourite anecdote of theirs relates to BJP president Nitin Gadkari’s fainting fit during an anti-price rally in the capital in April 2010. It was Gadkari’s first major public show after he took over the BJP.

If a southern chief minister spared the BJP a few blushes today, another Tamil-speaking politician told Advani he thought the world of him.

When finance minister P. Chidambaram paid a courtesy call on Advani at his residence on Sunday before the monsoon session of Parliament, Chidambaram said he was amazed to see how at his age, Advani had travelled to Kokrajhar to check the aftermath of the communal violence. The finance minister reportedly said gestures such as Advani’s were “positive” for democracy.

Despite Chidambaram’s laudatory mention, the BJP plans to raise the Assam violence in Parliament when it reconvenes on Wednesday and agitate outside. The good news for the finance minister is that the Opposition party will not boycott him on the 2G issue.