JUNE 12- Lal Krishna Advani, it was claimed on Monday, was not as miffed with Modi’s ascension as he was with the Sangh’s intervention. On Wednesday, Advani withdrew his resignation after the Sangh’s intervention.
Irony took a sip of Coolaid and laughed at the larger-than-life hoardings of Advani on BJP’s Ashoka Road headquters. The iron man of BJP is quite an irony man.
The plot hasn’t thickened; it’s as flimsy as ever. He isn’t going out and nobody knows what kept him in. Did he extract a promise that he would be made Prime Minister in the event the NDA acquires the required number in the next election? Or did he force the party to not announce Modi as the prime ministerial candidate? And if a promise was made to the past, what promise does future hold? Or did RSS and party president Rajnath Singh made a different promise to Modi, the future leader?
Party chief Rajnath Singh says it took just a phone call to bring the disastrous drama to this dud denouement, why wasn’t the phone call made on Monday? Why would RSS, which thinks of BJP as its political wing, allow this resignation drama to dent the wing? We have no clear answers yet. But curtains have certainly not fallen. There is more to come to the fore.
TERE SANGH
RSS boss Mohan Bhagwat spoke to Advani on Tuesday afternoon and asked him to respect BJP parliamentary board’s rejection of his resignation. And that he should continue to guide the party in national interest.
LOVE, HISTORY
Who respects rejection? Is it unrequited love? It’s clear there’s no love lost between past Advani and future leader Modi and the party is lost somewhere in between. If national interest came before party’s or own interest, then Advani didn’t need to create so much hullabaloo.
NICE TOUCH
Advani was not present at Tuesday’s press conference to announce his decision to stay back. Rajnath says he told him it would not look nice that Advani sat and heard him, his junior after all.
MAN HANDLE
Is that a joke? Rajnath has been party president and his seniors have sat in press conferences with him. It would have looked rather nice if the man in the centre of this storm was at the centre on Wednesday. It is quite clear that Advani has stepped back, but has some handle to squeeze and extract more.
CON-CERNS
According to Rajnath Singh Bhagwat assured Advani that all his concerns regarding functioning of the party would be ‘properly addressed’. He will discuss the modalities of addressing these concerns with Advani.
FICKLE FINGER
The functioning of the party in an election year will be decided by the man heading the election committee. That man is Modi. The other concern apparently was the RSS finger in BJP pie. Well, that finger ordered Advani to stay and he obeyed.
So who is fooling whom? They surely aren’t fooling around.
