By Faraz Ahmed
IANS
New Delhi : Narendra Modi may have become the longest serving Gujarat chief minister, but Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders Rajnath Singh and L.K. Advani have no plans to attend the planned celebrations.
In normal times, Modi's feat should have called for a gala party with the entire leadership in attendance, more so to make up for the BJP's rout in the Uttar Pradesh and Goa assembly elections.
But with dissidence in the party mounting against Modi, and many demanding that he be sacked ahead of elections later this year, none of the top leaders want to identify themselves with the politically beleaguered chief minister.
A BJP spokesman in Ahmedabad had announced earlier that Rajanath Singh, Advani and general secretary Arun Jaitley would attend the celebrations scheduled in Ahmedabad Sunday.
But that is clearly not happening.
"At the moment Rajnath Singh is away in Uttar Pradesh. We know he will be in Mumbai June 8-9. There is no mention of any Ahmedabad programme for June 10," a personal staff of the national president told IANS.
Party sources say Modi and Rajnath Singh are not on the best of terms.
One of the first moves Rajnath Singh made after becoming party president was to remove Modi from the BJP parliamentary board, the central election committee and the national executive.
Surprisingly, Advani and Jaitley, two senior leaders Modi could have banked upon, do not plan to attend the event either.
While Advani represents Gandhinagar constituency in the Lok Sabha, Jaitley is a Rajya Sabha member from Gujarat.
The staff at Advani's residence categorically stated that he had no plans to go to Ahmedabad Sunday.
Jaitley is expected to return from abroad to India only on June 23, a day before the BJP national executive meets here.
The party sources say that the senior leaders might avoid sharing the dais with Modi when factionalism within the Gujarat BJP has come to the fore again.
"A delegation of Gujarat MPs, legislators and BJP leaders including a former home minister camped here last week to lobby with the BJP leadership to remove Modi (ahead of assembly polls by December)," a BJP leader from Gujarat told IANS.
A former chief minister had accompanied the group of dissidents and another had extended his support to them, said the insider.
Modi, one of BJP's most popular leaders, last week bettered his predecessor Hitendra Desai's record of being in power for 2,062 days in the 1970s.
Modi took over as chief minister Oct 7, 2001 and completed 2,063 days in office June 1.
BJP sources said the party leaders were still assessing the extent of opposition from within the party against Modi.