Did Advani propose Atal for Bharat Ratna to embarrass UPA?

New Delhi, Jan 11 (UNI) Did Leader of the Opposition L K Advani propose former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's name for conferring the Bharat Ratna, the country's highest civilian honour to embarrass the UPA as they were considering to give this honour to CPI-M veteran Jyoti Basu and Hindi cine star Dilip Kumar? BJP circles believe that Mr Advani made his letter public despite knowing that the process for granting the Bharat Ratna and Padma Awards start at least six months, scheduled for Republic Day. Sources believe that the rationale behind Mr Advani writing the letter to the Prime Minister was to complicate things for the Government by proposing Mr Vajpayee's name.

However, given the lukewarm response to Mr Advani's proposal from the Congress party, BJP partymen believe that Mr Advani was eager to propose Mr Vajpayee's name to reciprocate the gesture of projecting him as the BJP's Prime Ministerial candidate in the next Lok Sabha polls.

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