New Delhi:
When the BJP ignored the opposition of LK Advani and chose Narendra Modi to head its campaign for the national elections, it was prepared for some residual dust. What it has got is a tornado.
Mr Advani, 85, a founding member of the BJP, resigned from all his party posts this afternoon. He quit the BJP's national executive, the parliamentary board and election committee.
(Read his full resignation letter)"I have not accepted Shri Advaniji's resignation," party chief Rajnath Singh said on Twitter.
Mr Modi, the 62-year-old chief minister of Gujarat, tweeted this evening to say he phoned Mr Advani, spoke to him at length, and urged him to change his mind and take into account "the wishes of lakhs of party workers." He also stressed, that he will "stand by whatever decision the Board takes," referring to an emergency meeting this evening of the BJP's core group, its parliamentary board.
(Track updates)Sources say the party is clear that while it will exhort Mr Advani to withdraw his resignation, it will not offer a re-diagramming of Mr Modi's new status as chairman of the party's campaign committee.
Mr Modi first phoned his one-time mentor this morning, sources said, but the senior leader did not take his call. Mr Modi reportedly mooted a trip to Delhi as a go-between and was told that Mr Advani had no comment on his travel plans.
Sources say Mr Modi's supporters are messaging the party's leadership to offer "courtesy, not compromise", a stand also allegedly taken by the BJP's powerful ideological mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh or RSS.
(Read: No one above party, 'shocked' RSS tells LK Advani)
It was allegedly the RSS that forced Sunday's announcement in Goa of Mr Modi's new status as chairman of his party's campaign committee despite the conspicuous absence of Mr Advani from the party's national executive session.