The gulf between BJP patriarch LK Advani and his onetime protégé, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, is only widening. It seems that LK Advani has realised that his eternal prime ministerial hope is fast slipping away and his onetime protégé has now become his competitor in more ways than one. Octogenarian leader and prime ministerial aspirant Lal Krishna Advani was openly told by Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) to opt out of power politics and work for the party as only a mentor. Unsurprisingly Advani was very much hurt by this snub and he distanced further away from Modi as he believes that the plan to keep him at bay from politics, was orchestrated by Gujarat CM Narendra Modi.
Besides walking out of the BJP’s national executive meet in Mumbai, LK Advani also slammed the party in his blog for bringing the focus on Modi. His comments, in his blog, that in 2014, it will be a non-Congress, non-BJP person as the Prime Minister, have created significant furore.
Begrudged with Narendra Modi’s act of upstaging the anti- corruption yatra with his own Sadbhavana Mission in Ahmedabad last year, Advani had shifted the starting point of his yatra from Gujarat to Bihar. Since then Advani has been warming up to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar. His office has also sent a request to Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar to flag off his rathyatra from Sitabdiara in Saran, Bihar, the birthplace of Jay Prakash Narayan which is scheduled on September 25.
This threw cold water on Modi’s preparations who had planned a huge rally outside Ahmedabad. It was planned in such a way that Advani would first visit Somnath and then fly down to Ahmedabad to address the rally, where Modi would have launched his war for the governor’s recall over Lokayukta row. Now that Advani is not coming, Modi isn’t inviting anyone else.