Swami Vishveshwara Teerth of Pejawar Mutt on Monday said that senior BJP leader L K Advani has expressed “his desire to distance himself from politics”. “He expressed a view to distance himself from active politics but was not clear when and at what time,” the religious leader said after Advani called on him on Monday.

Swami Vishveshwara Teerth said while Advani did not say “he wanted to retire,” he also added that “the guidance of a senior leader like him is needed in BJP and politics”. “For this reason he should not move away from it (politics),” the seer said.

Swami Vishveshwara Teerth, whose mutt at Udupi in Karnataka attracts the high and mighty of the Sangh Parivar, is on a visit here. He had emerged as an interlocutor when there were talks of bringing Uma Bharti back into the party fold.

While Advani has faced hostility from a section of the party and the Sangh Parivar, especially after the party’s debacle in the Lok Sabha election, he has enjoyed cordial ties with Hindu seers, said to be sympathetic to the Hindutva cause. Some of them like Swami Chidanand Saraswati had volunteered to help Advani’s Lok Sabha campaign with initiatives like “inter-faith dialogue” in the aftermath of communal clashes in Orissa. Swami Vishveshwara Teerth is another seer who has maintained close ties with Advani.

With the RSS thrust on younger leadership in the BJP — in his address in Mumbai on September 21, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat stressed that “more than 60 per cent swayamsevaks in the RSS are below the age of 40 years” — sources say Advani is likely to pass on the baton in the Lok Sabha to a second-rung BJP leader in not too distant future and mentor a newer leadership in the party. Deputy leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, is the

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