New Delhi, August 28: All eyes and ears in the deeply divided BJP are tuned to RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat as he addresses his first press conference in the capital on Friday.
If the party marred by expulsions, desertions and factional feud is expecting a roadmap from Bhagwat, there was some indication of that today with beleaguered president Rajnath Singh and senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi holding long, separate meetings with Bhagwat at the RSS headquarters.
Just days ago, before the chintan baithak in Shimla set off Jaswant Singh’s expulsion and Arun Shourie’s diatribe, Bhagwat had talked of the need for discipline in the BJP and a “younger leadership.” When and how (to work on this) is the BJP’s job, he had said.
While Singh’s expulsion over his Jinnah book and his remarks on Sardar Patel overshadowed the chintan baithak, the BJP resolved that L K Advani would continue as the parliamentary party leader for the next five years.
In sharp contrast to Jaswant who was promptly expelled, Shourie has not yet been issued any “clarification notice” even after his virulent attack against the party leadership, including against Rajnath Singh (Shourie called him “Alice in Blunderland”).
“A clarification notice would be issued to him after BJP Legislative Party leader in Rajasthan Vasundhara Raje relinquishes her position,” said a senior BJP leader, in what suggested a deep-rooted divide in the party.
Rajnath has been keen to secure Raje’s resignation while going slow on action against Shourie. The Rajnath camp has maintained that the local RSS unit in Rajasthan is against Raje.
Advani, meanwhile, came under renewed attack from some former colleagues of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Former National Security Advisor Brajesh Mishra reiterated today that Advani was, indeed, aware of “Jaswant Singh going to Kandahar to secure the release of hostages in the event of the hijack of the IC 814 aircraft”.
He had first made these revelations on Walk The Talk in June this year. “When that decision was taken in the Cabinet Committee on Security, Mr Jaswant Singh said that he wanted to go and make sure that everything was all right because he had received a message from the negotiators in Kandahar that it would be good for somebody at a high level to come here, because there could be some last-minute problems. None of us visualised that he was going there with the three terrorists”.
Asked about Advani’s claim “that he was not aware that Jaswant was going there,” Mishra had said: “I think it was Mr George Fernandes who said that perhaps Mr Advani has forgotten that he was there… I have already quoted Mr George Fernandes. I think we should take a more detached view of this. It wasn’t good that Mr Jaswant Singh was travelling in the same plane, but he wanted to get these hostages back and we should concentrate on that”.
On Thursday, he repeated much the same, while speaking to The Indian Express. He was supported by Yashwant Sinha, also close to Vajpayee and now to Rajnath Singh. Both Mishra and Sinha criticised Jaswant Singh’s expulsion.
The BJP reacted sharply to their comments. Party spokesperson Ravi Shankar Prasad said: “The allegations of Mishra, who is not a BJP member, are unfounded, unfortunate, and also appear to be motivated”. Chairman of BJP Disciplinary Committee Ram Naik said: “The expulsion of Jaswant Singh from the party is a closed chapter. The utterances of MPs (here that of Yashwant Sinha), however, need to be evaluated by the BJP Parliamentary Party and Parliamentary Board”. Bhagwat is likely to delve into the discipline issue again during his press conference tomorrow.
-Agencies