India’s opposition in disarray after Advani quits party posts

A day after Narendra Modi was elevated to the BJP’s campaign committee chief, BJP patriarch LK Advani yesterday resigned from all party posts — the national executive, parliamentary board, election committee.
The 85-year-old Advani, a founder member of the BJP and considered the party patriarch after Atal Bihari Vajpayee, resigned from all main fora of the party and tendered his resignation today to the party President Rajnath Singh.
In his resignation letter to Singh, who announced the appointment of Modi as chairman of the election campaign committee yesterday at the BJP national executive in Goa, he rued that the BJP was no longer the “same idealistic party” created by Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, Deendayal Upadhyaya, Nanaji Deshmukh and Vajpayee.
“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,” he said.
“Most leaders of ours are now concerned just with their personal agendas,” Advani said in his one-page resignation.
Advani had skipped the three-day deliberations of the party in Goa over the weekend citing health reasons. This was the first time Advani had stayed away from the national executive and the office bearers’ meeting prior to it.
In the letter, Advani said, “All my life I have found working for the Jana Sangh and the Bharatiya Janata Party a matter of great pride and endless satisfaction for myself.”
After finding fault with the way the party was being run now, he concluded the letter saying, “I have decided, therefore, to resign from the three main fora of the party, namely, the national executive, the parliamentary board and the election committee. This may be regarded as my resignation letter,” he said.
Sources said Rajnath Singh and Modi were to go together to Advani’s house and get his blessings. But Advani asked Singh to come alone for a meeting with him. When the two met, Advani expressed anger and resentment over Modi’s elevation.
Singh is believed to have requested Advani to withdraw his resignation but the party veteran said he was firm on his decision.
Significantly, Advani continues to be chairman of the BJP parliamentary party and working chairman of NDA. Party sources said that Singh has not accepted his resignation and efforts will be made to make him withdraw it.
In the midst of media speculation over his absence that was ascribed to his reservations over Modi’s elevation, the Gujarat chief minister claimed yesterday that he had talked to Advani and got his blessings.
Party leaders, including President Rajnath Singh, had put a brave face, saying it was ill health that kept Advani away from the Goa deliberations.
Modi is viewed with deep suspicion among India’s large Muslim minority and others who say he did not do enough to stop religious riots in 2002 that killed at least 1,000 people — most of them Muslims — in the western state of Gujarat, where he is chief minister. Modi has denied any wrongdoing in the riots.
Modi’s supporters say he is a no-nonsense administrator who has won praise from major Indian and foreign companies for making Gujarat a business-friendly state. They say he can deliver growth and development at a time when India’s economic growth has slowed to a decade low.
Despite his age, Advani, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in 2009, wanted another run at the top job, according to media reports.
He has spent the past months trying, unsuccessfully, to slow Modi’s ascent within the party’s main decision-making committees.
Pralay Kanungo, a politics professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, said Advani’s resignation could deepen the rifts within the party’s leadership.
Advani, seen as the elder statesman of the party, retained considerable influence within the BJP, particularly among mid-level leaders, and “could now have more freedom to attack Modi.” Advani is himself a controversial figure.
He led a campaign for the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of a mosque in Ayodhya in northern India. The campaign culminated in the razing of the mosque in 1992, triggering nationwide riots in which more than 3,000 died.