New Delhi:
At
LK Advani's house in Delhi, there was a steady stream of visitors from the BJP today including Nitin Gadkari and Uma Bharti. They have a single-point agenda: to convince the 85-year-old to withdraw his resignation from all party posts.
Mr Advani sent in a strongly-worded resignation letter on Monday, a day after the party over-ruled his objections and chose
Narendra Modi to lead its campaign for the national elections, due before May.
Senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh, who also called on Mr Advani today, said that the questions he raised in his resignation letter must be addressed by the party. "Most leaders of ours are now concerned just with their personal agendas," Mr Advani wrote in his letter, seen as criticism of Mr Modi, the Chief Minister of Gujarat.
Mr Singh was among a group of leaders who skipped a BJP conference in Goa over the weekend in protest against the party's new big plans for Mr Modi. On Sunday, he was selected as the chairman of the campaign committee.
Mr Modi's promotion was reportedly driven by the BJP's powerful ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh or RSS, which wanted to signal that it has accepted the wishes of party cadres who have loudly and publicly been calling for a large new role for Mr Modi.
That campaign has been powered by Mr Modi's spectacular re-election in December in Gujarat for a fourth term as chief minister. Last week, he delivered six new seats for the BJP in by-elections, proving his strength as a vote-getter.