NEW DELHI, 6 June 2003 — Scotching speculations triggered by his own remarks a day earlier, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said yesterday he would not quit politics yet and was “perfectly ready” to lead his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into general elections next year.

Vajpayee took pains to establish his authority as the leader of the multi-party National Democratic Alliance (NDA), when he told BJP President M. Venkaiah Naidu during a telephone conversation that he had “no intentions of quitting” and it was the media that had created the confusion about the leadership issue.

A Cabinet meeting at the prime minister’s residence, attended by ministers of the BJP and its NDA partners, later endorsed Vajpayee’s leadership.

Senior BJP leader and Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi set the tone when at the outset of the meeting he told Vajpayee the Cabinet hoped he would continue to lead the party and the government.

The Cabinet endorsement came a day after the 78-year-old Vajpayee caused a stir by saying that Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani would lead the BJP at the parliamentary polls due in October next year.

Newspapers yesterday put Vajpayee’s remarks on the front page, most speculating that they were an expression of pique at recent comments by BJP President Naidu rather than an actual handing of the baton to Advani.

Naidu Monday re-opened a debate about who would lead the BJP and the NDA coalition at the next polls — an old issue as the supposed rivalry between Vajpayee and Advani has never absolutely been laid to rest. At a press conference, Naidu said the BJP would give the hard-line Advani joint billing with Vajpayee ahead of the parliamentary election as well as for crucial state polls later this year.

But a day later, Naidu clarified that Vajpayee would remain the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.

Yesterday, Vajpayee’s leadership was also endorsed by the BJP’s ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) which has often been critical of the premier.

RSS spokesman Ram Madhav said Vajpayee’s comments on Advani showed “the mutual respect and confidence shared between the two leaders.

“It reflects Vajpayee’s large-heartedness, confidence and faith in Advani’s capabilities.”

Newspapers Thursday said Vajpayee’s comments on Advani were aimed at forcing the party to reaffirm faith in his leadership.

According to the Hindustan Times, Vajpayee’s remark was expressive of his “displeasure” at Naidu’s statement.

The Hindu newspaper quoted an unidentified prime ministerial aide as describing Vajpayee’s statement as a “googly” — a cricketing term to describe a ball that befuddles a batsman.

Vajpayee is widely seen as the “moderate” face of the BJP, one who can hold together the two dozen or so parties in the coalition, most of whose members are uneasy with Advani’s image of a Hindu hawk.

Advani is credited with running an aggressive pro-Hindu campaign in the early 1990s and making the BJP a force to be reckoned with after a dismal performance in 1984, when the party secured just two seats in Parliament.

He was at the forefront of a campaign a decade ago that united Hindu radicals across the country to build a temple in the northern town of Ayodhya where an ancient mosque stood. It led to the destruction of the mosque by Hindu zealots and culminated in nationwide Hindu-Muslim riots.

Since then Advani has struggled to find widespread acceptance.

But Vajpayee’s reportedly fragile health — another issue never far from the headlines — has been a cause for concern among party cadres.

The BJP and the main opposition Congress have thrown themselves into electoral mode with polls due later this year in the Hindu-heartland states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, Delhi, Chattisgarh and the tiny northeastern state of Mizoram.

Analyst B.G. Verghese of New Delhi’s Center of Policy Research, however, dismissed the controversy as “an effort (by the BJP) to grab the headlines and crowd out national attention from genuinely important issues,” he said.