New Delhi, Sept. 29: The BJP’s national executive appears doomed before it has even taken off.

Neither Narendra Modi, nor B.S. Yeddyurappa — two of the party’s most powerful regional leaders — will be present at the two-day session beginning tomorrow.

While the Gujarat chief minister cited the Navratra festival as the reason for staying away, the scam-tainted former Karnataka chief minister is said to be “peeved” after being told that he need not accompany L.K. Advani on his “Jan Chetna” march when it reaches his state in October-end.

The yatra, scheduled to be flagged off by Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar, starts on October 11.

Modi, a source close to him said, never travelled out of Gujarat during the nine-day event because he goes on a “total” fast. “He is not new to the BJP, the leaders should have kept this in mind before finalising the schedule.”

Sources, however, imputed political motives to Modi’s decision, saying he was miffed with BJP president Nitin Gadkari for re-inducting Sanjay Joshi and giving him the important assignment of overseeing next year’s Uttar Pradesh elections.

Joshi, a former general secretary who left the BJP in disgrace after a CD purportedly showed him having sex with a woman, was brought back at the RSS’s behest two months ago.

The Joshi-Modi antagonism goes back to the late 90s when Modi was brought to Delhi as a general secretary. Joshi, who took over as the state organising secretary from him, had “purged” the Gujarat BJP of Modi loyalists.

The sources said Modi was also upset with Advani’s decision to get Nitish to flag off his yatra from Bihar. The veteran leader had a Gujarat town, Karamsad, in mind, but Modi reportedly asked him how he could “unilaterally” announce the yatra and conveyed that the choice of Karamsad was unacceptable to him.

The sources said Advani then opted for Bihar, and not other BJP-ruled states, because he wanted to “pay Modi back” in the same coin, knowing well that Nitish was a source of provocation to him.

Sources in Bihar said the JD(U) leader, who did not allow Modi to campaign during the Bihar elections, is believed to have agreed to flag off Advani’s rath yatra only after securing an “assurance” from the BJP to keep Modi out of the party’s programmes in the state.

He is also believed to have told state BJP leaders not to put up Modi’s posters in any programme that involves him (Nitish).

Yeddyurappa, who stepped down after being named in a mining scam and is battling court cases, plans to go on a “jan sampark” (mass contact) campaign from October 3.

That Yeddyurappa still calls the shots in Karnataka is evident from the “reluctance” of the state unit to host Advani’s yatra. Sources said leaders in the coastal districts, over which the BJP has complete sway, made it clear that people would be preoccupied with the “cow puja” on the scheduled dates and Advani was advised to avoid this area.

Sources said while the yatra was a pretext, the “open defiance” of Modi and Yeddyurappa against the central command — neither reportedly sought Gadkari’s permission to abstain — underlined the fault lines between regional satraps and the Delhi bosses.