Revealed: Why Advani took the extreme step

New Delhi, June 11: Is senior BJP leader L K Advani really worried with the decline in the party's moral standards or some other reason worked behind his decision to quit from all top posts of the party?

According to a report published in Mid-Day newspaper, the octogenarian leader had drafted his resignation letter on Sunday itself, a day before he informed the party about his extreme decision and the high-voltage drama unfolded in the country's political scenario.

According to the report, it is said that Advani had set three conditions before the party and one of them was to announce him as the prime ministerial candidate and allow him to hold the position for at least six months if the BJP-led NDA returns to power after the next Lok Sabha elections.

Sources said that Advani considers himself to be a top contender for the prime ministerial job owing to his long political career and contribution to the party for several decades. The leader was even ready to quit the post after six months of assuming office if a successor emerged to take it from there.

Advani's second condition was to make Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi the convener and not the election chief in the party, the report said.

The final condition was that even if Modi was made the chief of the party's poll committee, he should report to him and that all shots will be called by the senior leader himself.

Advani eyed to become the party's key decision-maker and strategise the poll campaign but the RSS's insistence to appoint Modi as the campaign committee chief, which resulted in a difference of opinion between the two groups, resulting in Advani's resignation on Monday.

Sensing trouble, party chief Rajnath Singh asked his son Pankaj, general secretary of the party's Uttar Pradesh unit, to stay back in Delhi and keep in touch with Advani, the report added. He had even kept a chartered plane ready to take him to Goa in case the latter changed his mind but Advani refused to budge and stayed away from Goa.

The internal tension in the party soon reached its peak and a control room, which was set up at the party meeting in Goa, saw heated talks to persuade Adsvani from taking the extreme step. Besides the BJP chief, other leaders like Venkaiah Naidu, Ananthkumar and Smriti Irani were present at the meeting and soon the control room turned into a war zone, the Mid-Day report said.

The BJP leaders could not convey any positive signal to Advani for the pressure from the RSS was always mounting. The party top brass had no other option but to give in.

If other BJP leaders are after personal gains, what is Advani running after?

The senior leader has alleged that most BJP leaders today are concerned with their personal agendas [Read: Advani shocks all, resigns from all BJP posts], but then what he himself is doing? Why is the man so desperate to become the PM (even for six months) that he is ready to sacrifice his years of hard-earned reputation? Even the increasing fragility of the prime ministerial post in the UPA days do not deter him from wearing the thorny crown?

The minds of politicians are really strange to understand.

OneIndia News