LK Advani has reportedly told party chief Rajnath Singh that an announcement of Modi for PM will "destroy party's prospects" in 2014 (File pic)
BJP president Rajnath Singh braved a legion of reporters today to announce that "there is no trouble within the party, we don't have a problem", and said that a decision on whether
Narendra Modi will be the opposition's candidate for prime minister will be taken "after talking to everyone."
So far, negotiations by Mr Singh have resulted in diminishing returns. The party's senior-most leader, LK Advani told the BJP president yesterday that an announcement of Mr Modi as the BJP's presumptive prime minister will be a "disaster", said sources.
The BJP's ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh or RSS, wants Mr Modi's candidature to be announced urgently to cash in on his surging popularity among party workers.
Mr Advani wants the party to wait till after elections in states like Delhi in November to decide on its role for Mr Modi.
The conundrum for Mr Singh as president is whether to proceed now with a meeting of the BJP's top 12 leaders and put the decision on Mr Modi to vote. Mr Advani, 85, has allegedly said he will vote against the Gujarat Chief Minister; Murli Manohar Joshi and Sushma Swaraj could echo his dissent, said sources, publicly exposing once again the deep fissures that Mr Modi etches within the BJP.
Mr Advani has been trafficking his campaign against Mr Modi, once his protege for several months. The veteran first skipped a BJP conclave in Goa in June to protest Mr Modi's selection as campaign-in-charge, then resigned for 24 hours from all party posts before being persuaded to return to the fold by the RSS.
Mr Advani claims that by pivoting its campaign on Mr Modi, the BJP will be forced into a PR defense of the chief minister, who is regularly attacked by other parties for being a divisive leader on account of the riots in his state in 2002, in which hundreds of Muslims were killed.
Mr Advani says the party should instead focus on attacking the government for its economic failures and rich assortment of financial scams.