By IANS
New Delhi : Is Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee quitting politics? An editorial in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) mouthpiece ‘Panchjanya’ may say so, but not his party.
“Relieve me of active politics. It’s enough, let me go,” the magazine quoted the former prime minister as saying, and inferred that he wants to quit politics. It described him as a “pragya purush” (man of wisdom).
However, party leader M. Venkaiah Naidu said “there is nothing new in what he (Vajpayee) has said. On health grounds he had not been able to campaign for the party during the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.”
Naidu felt that “too much should not be read in such reports”.
Vajpayee, 83, has served 10 terms as a Lok Sabha member and has been the party mascot. It was in 1995 at the party’s national council meeting that his colleague L.K. Advani announced Vajpayee as the prime ministerial candidate.
The poet-politician, known for his oratorical skills, had the unique distinction of being the first non-Congress prime minister as Morarji Desai and V.P. Singh, had been at some point of time members of the Congress party.
The brief editorial coincides with the comment by party president Rajnath Singh that Leader of Opposition Advani was the natural choice for prime minister after Vajpayee.