It is widely speculated that senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader LK Advani’s prime ministerial ambitions led to his resignation from all top posts of the party and not necessarily the reasons mentioned by the party patriarch in his resignation letter addressed to BJP president Rajnath Singh.
According to a report published on Mid-Day website, Advani believed that being the senior-most leader and considering his contribution to the BJP, he should have be named the prime ministerial candidate and allowed to hold the top post for at least six months if the party came to power in 2014 polls.
Not only this, the sensational report also goes on to say that the ‘Iron Man’ wanted Narendra Modi to be made the convenor rather than the chief of the election management committee.
Advani’s third condition purportedly was that if Modi is appointed as BJP’s election campaign chief for 2014 general elections, the Gujarat chief minister should directly report to him, and he should have the final say in all matters.
But Advani’s hopes were dashed and Narendra Modi was anointed as the polls campaign chief at Goa National Executive meeting, as many top BJP leaders as well as the RSS had strongly backed Narendra Modi’s candidature.
Advani on Monday resigned from all posts of the BJP.
In a letter written to BJP president Rajnath Singh, Advani said he is resigning from the national executive, parliamentary board and election committee.
A dejected Advani, who did not attend the party’s three-day conclave in Goa, wrote in the letter that the direction in which the party is going is not the way it was planned by the party’s founders.
“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,” Advani wrote.
Taken aback by Advani’s surprise decision, BJP leaders have been holding parleys since yesterday, but have failed to convince the senior leader.
