New Delhi, Oct. 12: One-time Marxist Sudheendra Kulkarni's advice may have been disastrous for his political career but L.K. Advani today stood staunchly behind the former aide, as he had done throughout their two-decade association.

Shortly after Shiv Sena bullies had blackened Kulkarni's face at a book launch in Mumbai, Advani was the first in the BJP to condemn the attack.

Junior ministers Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Kiren Rijiju followed suit. But true to his recent penchant for silence on extremist acts, Prime Minister Narendra Modi neither spoke nor tweeted on the subject.

Advani condemned the recent trend of violence and intolerance as he spoke to reporters here on the margins of the launch of Chanakya, a strategic affairs journal.

"In the last few days, there are these signs that whenever any person or point of view is not acceptable, then you resort to violence or turn intolerant towards them," he said.

"This is a matter of concern for the nation. Democracy must ensure tolerance for a different point of view."

Without naming the Sena, which runs a coalition government with the BJP in Maharashtra, Advani added: "But whosoever has done it has besmirched the good name of the country."

Kulkarni's association with Advani goes back to the Ayodhya agitation of the 1990s.

A native of Belgaum in Karnataka, Kulkarni studied at IIT Mumbai but never took to engineering. A Left-leaning activist, he became a journalist and worked for newspapers such as the now-defunct Daily and The Sunday Observer.

During Advani's rathyatra, Kulkarni wrote an article on it in which he declared his conversion from Marx to Hindutva. Advani liked the piece so much that he asked who Kulkarni was at a news conference in Mumbai.

Later, in an interview, Kulkarni explained his ideological switch: "People like me were living in an illusory land. I realised very late in my life that Marxist ideology is not suitable in India, in fact I would say it is unsuitable for any corner of the world."

Kulkarni began working for Advani and the BJP informally before joining the party in 1996. Other journalists within Advani's inner circle resented his presence from day one.

But the patriarch took such a liking to Kulkarni that he appointed him his sarathi (charioteer) during his Swarna Jayanti Rath Yatra, held to mark the 50th anniversary of India's independence in 1997.

Kulkarni helped craft the BJP's manifesto before the 1998 Lok Sabha elections, and was inducted into Atal Bihari Vajpayee's PMO in 1999 despite the pro-Advani tag.

His BJP critics attributed this to his alleged proximity to a UK-based industrial house that had gained unbridled access to the Vajpayee establishment.

When the BJP lost the 2004 general election, Kulkarni became Advani's full-time strategist. Many in the BJP accuse him of being singly responsible for Advani's fall from grace within the Sangh clan.

In the summer of 2005, when Advani visited Pakistan - for the first time since leaving the western neighbour after Partition - Kulkarni pencilled his schedule, decided who he would meet and drafted his speeches and public lines.

Keen to temper Advani's hawkish image and package him as a "liberal" who would fit into the shoes of an indisposed Vajpayee, Kulkarni coaxed an endorsement of Mohammed Ali Jinnah out of his boss when the contingent visited Jinnah's mausoleum in Karachi.

Advani had already begun his visit with a condemnation of the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition, in a sense disowning the climactic point of his political career.

On a register placed near Jinnah's tomb, he wrote from a text Kulkarni had prepared that said: "There are many people who leave an inerasable stamp on history. But there are very few who actually create history. Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah was one such rare individual."

Advani's praise sparked anger in the Sangh and the BJP. But he and Kulkarni refused to dilute or disown the statements, saying they would "prepare" the party to accept them.

That didn't happen. Advani lost his standing in the BJP. But neither abandoned Kulkarni's agenda to fashion an ideological makeover for Advani even at the risk of antagonising the Sangh. Advani never distanced himself from his aide.

In 2008, Kulkarni got a news channel to partner him in a sting operation of sorts to "expose" alleged Congress efforts at buying off Opposition MPs to win a trust vote. The enterprise bombed after the channel backed out.

Kulkarni was arrested in the case a few years later and spent several months in jail as an undertrial.

After the BJP lost the 2009 general election under Advani's leadership, and Narendra Modi later elbowed the veteran out of the leadership race, Kulkarni's political career too ended. He returned to Mumbai and began writing newspaper columns.

Curiously, Mamata Banerjee had briefly rehabilitated him, putting Kulkarni on an advisory panel when she was UPA railway minister between 2009 and 2011.

They had got to know each other when the Trinamul chief was in Vajpayee's government and Kulkarni was the then Prime Minister's trouble-shooter during the frequent tantrums she threw.

After Kulkarni walked out of jail in late 2011, then BJP president Nitin Gadkari had felicitated him, arousing speculation of a comeback. But other BJP leaders nixed the possibility.

Today, at Khurshid Mahmud Kasuri's book launch, Kulkarni recalled Advani's Jinnah phase and the "heavy price" the patriarch had to pay because of the "baseless campaign of some people in India".