By Faraz Ahmad, IANS
New Delhi : Will former deputy prime minister L.K. Advani lead the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) into the next elections? This question will dominate the three-day national executive meet of the party that begins in Bhopal Friday with the hope that early polls are very much round the corner.
The ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) and its main constituent Congress party may be vehemently denying the possibility of a snap election, but the BJP and in particular Advani, the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, have blown the election bugle.
But before it gets into election mode, the party and the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) it leads have to resolve who to project as the prime ministerial candidate.
Advani is likely to be helped a little in this exercise by the possible absence from Bhopal of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who, as spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said Wednesday, “may go to Bhopal only if his doctors allow him to”.
Since Aug 29, when Advani spoke to the Indian Express in Hyderabad implicitly supporting the Indo-US 123 nuclear agreement, his supporters have celebrated his return to the centrestage of BJP politics and have urged him to steer the party to power instead of leaving affairs in the hands of president Rajnath Singh.
On his part, Advani has taken the initiative by making a big issue of the affidavit submitted by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) on the controversial Sethusamudram project denying the historical veracity of the Ramayana.
Advani had blamed directly “the Congress president” for this, thereby trying to turn this into a direct combat between him and Sonia Gandhi.
The three-day deliberations at the national executive will show how far Advani has succeeded in persuading the party to leave the reins in his hands in the run-up to the next elections.
But the path isn’t smooth.
There are those in BJP who are resisting such attempts. Former BJP president Murli Manohar Joshi and party vice president Yashwant Sinha have gone on record to state that there are many competent leaders in the party who could be considered for the post of prime minister.
It has to be seen whether the BJP manages to resolve this at the Bhopal meet and marches behind Advani or postpones the issue to another day.
There is more than just the general election to take care. Even if there are no general elections in the near future, the Gujarat polls are due anytime before December. Himachal Pradesh will go to the polls early next year.
While the Himachal elections may not have any long-term impact on the national political scenario, the Gujarat polls are crucial for the BJP. Its electoral fortunes are closely linked to the outcome of that election.
And this may probably be the last national executive meet before the announcement of Gujarat assembly polls.
Most BJP leaders here consider Chief Minister Narendra Modi as the tallest Gujarat leader who alone can deliver one more victory to the party. But the entire Patel and Koli community and their leaders led by two former chief ministers, Keshubhai Patel and Suresh Mehta, have raised an open banner of revolt against Modi.
During the meet, party leaders may not say much on record. But Javadekar said Wednesday that “preparations for Gujarat and Himachal elections will come up for discussions when we discuss organizational matters”.