New Delhi:
Leaders of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) will meet senior BJP leader LK Advani in Delhi today in an attempt to get all party leaders on board to allow party president Nitin Gadkari to get a second term.
RSS leaders are currently in the national capital to ensure that Mr Gadkari is re-elected without opposition. Mr Advani and Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj had skipped a key BJP rally in Mumbai in May after an amendment was moved to change the party constitution to allow Mr Gadkari to continue to hold his current position. The move was later approved at the party's national executive meeting at Surajkund in Haryana.
The process of electing the new party president will be completed in November, ahead of the crucial Gujarat assembly elections. According to party's constitution earlier, the party president could only have a three-year term; and there was no provision that allowed a BJP President to be re-elected for a second stint.
Mr Gadkari is currently in the headlines after activist-politician Arvind Kejriwal accused him of grabbing 100 acres of land from some of Maharashtra's poorest farmers in collaboration with Ajit Pawar, leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), to further his business interests. The matter is also likely to be discussed in today's meeting. Both RSS and the party have dismissed the charges as 'laughable' and 'frivolous'.