Raje to meet top party leaders in capital

New Delhi, Aug 22: Former Rajasthan chief minister and rebel opposition leader, Vasundhara Raje to meet BJP leader LK Advani and party president Rajnath Singh on Saturday, Aug 22.

After a week-long drama which saw her virtually defying the BJP's central leadership, Raje on Friday, Aug 21 left for Delhi with scores of her supporters. Along the way, she received a rapturous welcome from her supporters, suggesting that she enjoys huge popularity in Rajasthan.

The meeting with Advani and Singh is scheduled for 3 p m, a television channel reported.

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Raje was asked to resign from the post of Leader of Opposition in the wake of the party's dismal performance in the Lok Sabha and assembly polls.

After her defiance last week, the BJP Parliamentary Board had last Sunday endorsed the decision against her but kept no deadline for it.

Sources have said Raje might submit her resignation after meeting both leaders.

In Shimla on Friday, Aug 21, senior BJP leader and Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj indirectly hinted that if Raje failed to back down, she could be removed from the party on grounds of indiscipline.

Without directly confirming plans to remove Raje, Swaraj alluded at a press conference that, "The BJP has removed the party's state level leadership in those states where it performed poorly in the last (state and general) elections."

In this context, she also gave the examples of BC Khanduri who was replaced as the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand by Ramesh Pokhriyal, Om Mathur who was replaced by Arun Chaturvedi as the BJP's Rajasthan unit president and Krishnapal Gurjar coming in place of Atam Prakash Manchanda as president of the BJP's Haryana unit.

She also emphasized that coalition politics in India was here to stay to fight the 'hegemony' of the Congress party.

Historically, she said that Shyama Prasad Moorkerjee, was the first person to initiate coalition politics in the country with the formation of the Jana Sangh in the 1950s. The aim then was to counter the Congress, and that tradition continues, she said.

Raje said that the three-day 'chintan baithak' had discussed the merits and demerits of coalition politics.

ANI