Anshuman Mishra, who was in the news recently when his candidature for a Rajya Sabha seat from Jharkhand was endorsed by some BJP MLAs, today wrote a letter to party leader L K Advani asking him to hang his boots and give way to younger leaders. Describing Advani as the tallest leader and mentor of the party in his letter, Mishra asked the octagenarian leader to give an opportunity to leaders like Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj and Narendra Modi to “lead the nation”. “….Don’t you think a father, who has nourished his son’s (sic)- should make way for the younger generation,” Mishra asks Advani in the letter. Other young leaders Mishra has praised are party president Nitin Gadkari, Piyush Goyal, M Venkaiah Naidu and Rajnath Singh. Mishra’s letter to Advani today has come in the wake of the latter’s blog posting expressing disappointment at the state of affairs in the party. Advani had stated that mood in BJP is not upbeat and NDA has failed to rise to the occasion.
The senior leader also criticised the BJP decision to induct tainted former minister of Mayawati cabinet in Uttar Pradesh, Babu Singh Kushwaha into the party-fold as well as the decisions taken in Karnataka and Jharkhand. Mishra was at the receiving end of the ire of Advani and BJP leaders like Yashwant Sinha, Swaraj and Jaitley who had prevailed and forced him to withdraw his candidature. In his letter, Mishra suggests to Advani that he should retire. “It is like Tendulkar batting for India in his late 40s- team is bound to lose- let’s make way for the young- country has changed- please realise this basic fact,” he said.
——PTI