Rift in BJP? Narendra Modi stays away from national meet

He has kept away as he is unhappy with senior leader L K Advani’s Jan Chetna Yatra for good governance and clean politics,sources said. He had reportedly told Advani that the yatra is “unnecessary and irrelevant”.

Modi,who is said to be gearing up to become BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate in the next polls,sees Advani’s yatra as the latter’s attempt to be in the fray.

Modi’s disagreement led Advani to shift the starting point of his yatra to Sitabdiara in Bihar.

BJP top brass tried to downplay Modi’s absence. “It is not true that Modi is unhappy. He fasts during Navratra and so is not attending the national executive,” BJP Chief spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said.

Modi is also sulking due to the re-induction of his political adversary Sanjay Joshi into the party fold. Though Joshi has been brought in informally and his profile is

low-key in comparison to his earlier role as General Secretary (Organisation),it still has not gone down well with Modi.

To add to the woes of the Advani camp,some leaders have even said Modi would make “the best Prime Minister in the history of the country”.

BJP Rajya Sabha MP Balbir Punj,who is believed to be close to the Gujarat chief minister,said: “If he (Modi) gets a chance,he will prove to be the best Prime Minister in the history of the country.” Punj is BJP in-charge of Gujarat.

Asked if Modi or Advani would make a better Prime Minister,Punj said,“I do not know this. I will not make any comparisons. That the people of the nation will decide.”

Prasad also described Modi as a “very capable and competent chief minister who is praised not only in India but abroad as well”.

Asked who would be BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate,Prasad took an apparent dig at Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi,saying,“We have a galaxy of leaders. We are not dependent on one Yuvaraj (crown prince).”

Yeddyurappa,who had grudgingly stepped down from the post of Karnataka chief minister recently after the Lokayukta indicted him in a land allotment case,has also kept away from the conclave.

While the official reasons cited for his absence are by-elections in Karnataka and his wife’s death anniversary today,sources said he is unhappy with his removal and his weakening hold on the state government.

Ex-Uttarakhand Chief Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal,who was replaced by B C Khanduri to check increasing corruption in the government,was also absent today. His unhappiness may harm BJP in the forthcoming Assembly polls.

However,BJP maintained there was no dissension within. “Infighting is in the Congress and not in our party,” senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi said,while BJP spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain insisted “there is no clash”.