Modi reaches out to senior leaders Advani and Joshi

Prime minister to-be Narendra Modi on Sunday reached out to party elders LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi as top leaders held parleys on the formation of the new government that will be sworn in this week.

The focus of the confabulations among the Bharatiya Janata Party top brass and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh appeared to be on the positions that could be offered to the veterans, like the post of Lok Sabha Speaker to Advani, keeping in view their stature and experience in the party and Parliament.

Gujarat Bhavan, Keshav Kunj, the RSS local headquarters, and BJP president Rajnath Singh’s residence were hubs of consultations ahead of government formation in which allies are also expected to be included.

A flurry of activities marked the day when senior leaders including Sushma Swaraj, Venkaiah Naidu, Kalraj Mishra and Gopinath Munde met the RSS’ second-in-command Bhaiyyaji Joshi notwithstanding statements by RSS leaders that they have no role in government formation.

The discussions gained momentum as the Election Commission handed over the list of newly-elected MPs to President, who is expected to set in motion the process of government formation after the BJP and its allies choose Modi as their Prime Minister so that he could call him to head the new government.

Modi, who stayed put at Gujarat Bhavan here overnight, drove to Advani’s residence just a little after noon in the first formal meeting between the two after the party’s resounding victory in the elections. 

The meeting lasted 40 minutes.

Saturday, the two had met at a meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Board and greeted each other before the media.

Nothing official was disclosed about Sunday’s meeting but sources say that the role Advani could play in the new dispensation was discussed. Advani had reservations over Modi being made the Prime Ministerial face but had to come around at the intervention of RSS.

In the evening, Modi went to the residence of Joshi, another veteran who reluctantly made way for Modi in Varanasi.

Modi spent well over an hour with him.