The Saffron Sun sets

As the lotus bloomed for the Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi yesterday with his anointment as the Chairman of the Central Campaign Committee, 24 hours later the old guard seems to be firing back at the coast. Former Deputy Prime Minister and the tallest leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party, Lal Krishna Advani resigned from all key party positions earlier this morning. This decision coming out at the wake of his growing dissatisfaction about the latest anointment of Modi as the Campaign Chief and the complete ignorance by party leaders about his views on the entire issue.

Denied time and again about any rift in the party, the BJP went into tizzy as the party patriarch quits all top positions by sending a resignation letter at around 11 am. The letter being personally delivered by Advani’s closest aide Deepak Chopra to BJP President Rajnath Singh. If sources are to be believed, the letter was written sometime during the wee hours after wide consultation yesterday with close aides and family members. Remember several warnings were coming since Saturday but all went ignored and the situation now is nothing but a stalemate.

To quote from the letter sent by LK Advani to Rajnath Singh, he wrote “All my life I have found working for the Jana Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party a matter of great pride and endless satisfaction to myself.” He also went on to say “For some time I have been finding it difficult to reconcile either with the current functioning of the party, or the direction in which it is going. I no longer have the feeling that this is the same idealistic party created by Dr Mookerji, Deen Dayalji, Nanaji and Vajpayeeji whose sole concern was the country, and its people. Most leaders of ours are now concerned just with their personal agendas. “

To be specific, he has resigned from three top positions including the National Executive, the Parliamentary Board and the Election Committee. However it is interesting to note that he hasn’t however resigned from the post of the NDA Working President. LK Advani has been since very long suggesting a two power model by asking the National Executive to form two campaign committees, one for the general elections while other for the state polls. The party leadership however failed to deliver to his demands and to some extent also tried to downplay him.

The BJP is now clearly under intense pressure to get their house in order as the senior most leader leaves the party in a lurch. It would be now interesting to see what would be the stand of senior leaders like Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley. Apart from top party leaders who are rushing to and fro between LK Advani and Rajnath Singh’s residences, the ideological backbone of the BJP, the RSS has also stepped in. While the negotiations have already begun and several offerings being made to the party stalwart, LK Advani looks extremely adamant.

The BJP President has however refused to accept his resignation and called for an emergency meeting of the Parliamentary Board to be held 7 pm tonight. Clearly the party is now seemed to be washing its dirty linen out in public. If LK Advani is made to dissociate than it’ll impact far beyond the BJP and can prove to be a huge setback and disappointment among local netas and party workers who actually run the campaigns during elections. It would be now interesting to see how hard will the BJP bargain or just let a complete era come to an end. And with Advani’s resignation, it appears that the saffron sun has finally set for the BJP. To conclude it looks like the so-called party with difference has now become a party with differences.  

For all sorts of bouquets, brickbats or any kind of suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below or mail at author.vish94@gmail.com