Raje's meeting with Advani, Rajnath delayed

New Delhi, Aug.22 (ANI): The meeting between former Rajasthan Chief Minister and now Leader of Opposition in the Rajasthan State Assembly, Vasundhara Raje, and senior BJP leader L.K. Advani and party president Rajnath Singh has been postponed from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Raje was to meet Advani at 2 p.m., but sources said that this has been postponed by a couple of hours. They also confirmed that her meeting with Rajnath Singh has also been postponed.

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

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 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 B.C 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.

She confirmed that three-day Chintan Baithak had thoroughly discussed the pro's and con's of coalition politics. (ANI)