NEW DELHI, 17 April 2005 — Even as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s (RSS) call for L.K. Advani’s retirement has set off speculation of a leadership change in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the party yesterday insisted no change was on the cards.
“There is no question of Advani quitting (as BJP president),” said former BJP chief M. Venkaiah Naidu, who was appointed the party vice president recently.
Speaking on the sidelines of a party meet near Madras, Naidu described the reports of Advani’s exit as baseless.
He said Advani would appoint a senior party leader to take charge of the five states going to polls next year — Tamil Nadu, Assam, West Bengal, Kerala and Pondicherry.
Urging local workers to work hard for next year’s elections, Naidu called for the infusion of “young blood” into the party and “new faces” to be identified as poll candidates.
“This does not mean that we should ignore the old-timers in the party. We have 234 seats and can mix the young and the old,” he added. The remarks did little to quell speculation about Advani bowing out to make way for a younger face in the coming months.
Some of the most commonly floated names for a possible successor are Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh.
The BJP has been in ferment since RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan’s television interview in which he called for former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Advani to make way for the younger generation.
BJP sources admit a leadership change has become inevitable, either now or later.
For now, the sources say, Advani will surely retain both his hats — leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha, given the BJP’s paucity of forceful voices in the lower house, and party presidentship too. Eventually, he would have to give up the reins of the party to a younger leader, more than one BJP leader said.
The new leader would have to rebuild the party and also smoothen the rift in ties between the party and its ideological mentor RSS, to start winning elections and to lead an able party.
Though high profile, the BJP’s second rung is a badly divided lot, making the choice of an acceptable candidate for party chief from among them particularly difficult.
Former union minister Swaraj is a favorite with the top echelons of the BJP and enjoys a degree of acceptability among its allies, but she is not the first pick of the RSS.
The intense rivalry between former union ministers Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh goes against them. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharati are also among the probables.
Meanwhile, the BJP feels it should not fight the assembly elections in Tamil Nadu under any alliance, Naidu said yesterday. “The state unit (of the party) is of the opinion that it should fight the assembly polls on its own,” Naidu told reporters at a two-day BJP conclave. Assembly elections are due in Tamil Nadu in May 2006. Naidu, however, said all options are open until the election dates were announced.
The BJP’s alliances with the DMK and the AIADMK, the state’s two main political parties, have been unsuccessful. The DMK and other Dravidian parties, such as the MDMK and PMK, quit the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance before the May 2004 Lok Sabha elections.
The AIADMK has so far been reluctant to team up with the BJP after the parliamentary elections in which their alliance lost all the seats in Tamil Nadu and neighboring Pondicherry.
The state BJP is not contesting the Kanchipuram and Gummidipoondi by-elections in May even though the party is expected to draw considerable mileage following its support to the Shankaracharyas of the Kanchi mutt. The Shankaracharyas face cases of murder and other criminal offenses.
