While the party has not formally announced the decision, a high-level meeting at Advani’s residence decided that the rallies will not take place as per the announced itinerary.

The BJP had said last week that Advani would address 13 rallies in different parts of the country, starting from Jabalpur on February 6 and concluding at Jammu on March 23. The Jabalpur rally will take place as scheduled on Wednesday, but most of the others stand postponed.

National Security Advisor (NSA) M K Narayanan had called on Advani and senior leader Jaswant Singh on Monday night and requested them to cancel the campaign.

“Ignoring the advice of the NSA will not be an intelligent move,” BJP leader Sushma Swaraj said on Tuesday. “The Jabalpur rally will take place on Wednesday, but the one at Rampur on 10th has been postponed. Davangiri rally on 13th and Delhi rally on 21st will take place as scheduled. The rallies which have been scheduled after 21st have been postponed because leaders felt that Advaniji should not be away from Delhi when Parliament meets for the Budget Session.”

The BJP said the NSA quoted reports about the ISI and the underworld planning an attack on Advani and Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi. “He said it would take a fortnight to ascertain these claims and requested Advaniji to reschedule the programme. There is no question of cancellation of the campaign, but it will be rescheduled,” a senior BJP leader said. He added that the BJP considered the advice of the NSA in all seriousness and does not want to score a political point over it.

Incidentally, one key campaign points that Advani was planning to raise during his campaign was internal security and the Rampur rally was even named “Suraksha Sankalp Rally”. This is the second time that Advani has cancelled a yatra midway. In 2005, following the terrorist strike in Ayodhya, he had started the Bharat Suraksha Yatra. It was called off midway after Pramod Mahajan’s killing.

Through the current string of rallies, Advani hoped to gain the first-mover advantage in the next general election. While a section of the party felt that it was a bit too early to get into election mode, the view that 10 state Assembly elections of 2008 and the general election of 2009 could be collapsed into an integrated campaign prevailed.

Now that the external environment has forced the party to rethink its programme, leaders are trying to see the bright side of it. They say the party will reschedule the campaign closer to the elections. Advani was to address meetings at Rampur, Davangere, Delhi, Ranchi, Varanasi, Baripada, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Jammu and one in Haryana.