LK Advani and Mohanrao Bhagwat

New Delhi, Sept. 21: L.K. Advani is resisting the RSS’s proposal for putting out a categorical clarification that his proposed anti-corruption yatra was not meant to position himself as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in the next Lok Sabha polls, said sources.

The closest he came to indicating that he might not be jockeying for one was an answer in response to a question a journalist asked today shortly after he met Mohanrao Bhagwat, the RSS sarsanghchalak, in Nagpur.

“I would only say that I first became a (RSS) swayamsevak, then a member of the Jan Sangh and then the BJP. I feel what I have got from these organisations, from my fellow workers and what the country has given me is much more than the PM’s post,” Advani said.

It is reliably learnt that the Sangh chief made two things clear to him: that he was out as a PM contender in 2014 and he would be advised not to contest the next election, whenever they were held.

For quite a while, the RSS has been thinking of asking Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, an approximate contemporary, to “retire” from electoral politics to complete the process of generational change. Some in the BJP felt it was “unfair” to inflict “collateral damage” on Joshi just to keep Advani out. Joshi is seven years younger than Advani and should, therefore, be allowed to have at least another Lok Sabha stint.

When it was suggested that a statement delinking his yatra from the joust for prime-ministership might “help” the BJP, Advani’s reported counter was this might queer the pitch of the show, “dampen” cadre morale and keep the crowds at bay. He reportedly argued that a low turnout would eventually reflect “poorly” on the BJP and by implication, the Sangh.

Sources said some BJP leaders would make another attempt to coax a clarification out of Advani and hope that it could be woven into his speech at the national executive in end-September.

For the record, he maintained that Bhagwat had “blessed” his yatra and said he wanted it to succeed. He also denied that there were perceptional differences on it between him and the Sangh. “There is no difference of opinion,” he stressed.

Advani called on BJP president Nitin Gadkari, convalescing in Nagpur after putting himself through a surgery to shed weight. He said Gadkari will formally announce the details of his yatra after he returned to Delhi on September 24 and finalised the schedule with his BJP colleagues.

It is learnt that Bhagwat counselled him to pencil the roadmap and dates in conjunction with the BJP so that organisational work in the election-bound states would not be hampered. Left to themselves, BJP sources said they would rather not have his yatra traversing states such as Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab that face elections in the next six and seven months.

Earlier too, Advani has locked horns with the RSS, most notably in 2005, when KS Sudarshan, then the Sangh head, had said Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee should make way for younger persons.

Advani bought time and finally demitted office on January 1, 2006, but not before asserting that he had done it of his own free will and not at the RSS’s bidding.

Sources said the big difference between 2005 and 2011 was that Advani had “let down” the BJP in 2009 and unlike his successor, Rajnath Singh, who the RSS had pinned its hopes on to resuscitate the party, Narendra Modi had emerged as a “more effective” rallying point for the cadres and some leaders.