New Delhi, Feb. 22: Nitin Gadkari today got Vasundhara Raje to formally quit as Rajasthan Opposition leader, taking the first major step to put the BJP on track with the unqualified backing of the RSS.

The move marks a victory for the RSS over L.K. Advani, who many in the BJP felt had covertly supported Raje in her battle with the former party chief Rajnath Singh. Singh had long insisted that she own up responsibility for the back-to-back defeats in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections and quit her post.

Even BJP members who were neither for or against Raje were convinced she would not have gone to the extent of parading her backers, when the pressure on her to quit increased, in New Delhi without Advani’s “blessings”.

The RSS, on the other hand, had not taken her “insubordination” kindly and was firm that she would have to go. It had asked Gadkari to ensure she left the post but asked him to do so without creating a fresh crisis. The new BJP president has succeeded in the task, days after the BJP national council ratified his own election.

Raje sent her resignation to Rajasthan Speaker Dipendra Singh Shekhawat. The House meets for fours days from tomorrow. The BJP’s deputy leader, Ghanshyam Tiwari, will stand in for Raje till a new leader is elected by “consensus”, a process senior leader M. Venkaiah Naidu said would be over by early March, when the House reconvenes to pass the budget.

Naidu said Raje would be one of the several leaders who will be consulted before the new leader was chosen, but indicated she would not be allowed to exercise a veto. “I spoke to Raje yesterday after the BJP president (Gadkari) asked me to. She agreed to submit her resignation. She will be consulted before electing her successor and the views of the BJP legislature party will also be taken into consideration,” Naidu said. State BJP chief Arun Chaturvedi said Raje’s successor “would be chosen unanimously, not by one or two individuals”.

Initially, the BJP and the RSS leaders had thought of “indulging” Raje in the belief that she was their only crowd-puller in Rajasthan. When she agreed to quit last October, she was told she would have a decisive say in choosing her successor and she would be “appropriately” accommodated in the central team.

But BJP sources said instead of reciprocating, she “defied” the central directive by sending her resignation letter to Rajnath, then heading the party, and not to the Speaker. The BJP was beset with problems in other states and with the Rajasthan panchayat elections a couple of months away, Rajnath did not push harder.

After Gadkari took charge in December, he summoned Raje to Delhi and told her she would have to go. But he promised to “adequately compensate” her and asked her to work hard for the Rajasthan rural polls.

However, Raje refused to campaign, except in her own constituency, and the ruling Congress swept the elections. She made matters worse by not attending the BJP’s Indore national council meeting last week, citing a “personal issue”.