By IANS
Gandhinagar : Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley, visiting Gujarat to placate party rebels ahead of the assembly elections later this year, met former chief minister and BJP leader Keshubhai Patel Monday.
Jaitley, in charge of the party’s Gujarat affairs, conferred with Patel, who has emerged as the rallying point of dissidents. The meeting at Patel’s residence lasted an hour at the end of which Jaitley said they discussed the strategy for the assembly polls.
A rebellion has been brewing in the state’s ruling party with several senior leaders, including former state and central ministers, opposing Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s style of functioning.
The Jaitley-Patel meeting assumes significance in view of the rebel leaders’ plan to hold a convention at Rajkot Sep 14, where they are widely expected to decide on parting ways with the BJP.
Jaitley said Patel was a senior leader in the party and it was, therefore, natural that the poll strategy was discussed with him.
He, however, declined to comment on the dissidence in the party.
Sources close to the rebel camp said Patel once again raised the issue of Modi’s “autocratic” style of functioning.
Jaitley has a tough task ahead in mollifying rebels, who have been hardening their posture, before the assembly elections, due by December.
At a recent press meet, Goradhan Zadaphia, who was minister of state for home in Modi’s cabinet at the time of communal violence in 2002, stated that there was no question of dissidents fighting elections under Modi’s leadership.
He said those opposed to the chief minister had all respect for central leaders of the party, including former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. But he ruled out any rapprochement as long as Modi continued to be the leader.