MillenniumPost
Nation

Act III, Scene II: Joshi engages Modi again

The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) pracharak Sanjay Joshi has once again managed to engage the Gujarat strongman Narendra Modi into a duel. Having been evicted from the national executive of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ahead of the party's recently concluded national executive at the behest of the Gujarat chief minister, Joshi waited for another duel before quitting 'his charge' in the party. Contrary to the official briefing by the party spokesperson Prakash Javdekar, sources close to Joshi said that he had not quit the party but only given up his responsibilities in Uttar Pradesh.  

Modi's
bete noire
was rehabilitated ahead of the Uttar Pradesh assembly poll by the party president Nitin Gadkari as the state in-charge, forcing Modi to withdraw from the campaign. However, party's poor performance in the poll emboldened Modi to extract his pound of flesh and establish his primacy as party's leader ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election, much to the discomfort of his one-time mentor and former deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani and also the RSS-backed party president. Though Gadkari seems to have called truce with Modi, the same is not true in the cases of other leaders. This issue has divided the party. In an interview to a business daily, the deputy chief minister of Bihar Sushil Kumar Modi criticised the way Joshi has been treated.
 
Joshi's resignation comes after some posters appeared in Ahmedabad praising the RSS pracharak, cocking a snook at the Gujarat chief minister. Posters were seen as a possible attempt at rallying the anti-Modi leaders ahead of the state assembly polls, which are scheduled for later this year. The acceptance of Joshi's resignation by Gadkari just ahead of the Gujarat state executive meeting in Rajkot does not create a very favourable ambience for Modi either. The atmosphere in Gujarat already stands vitiated, with the police registering a case against the former chief minister Keshubhai Patel for allegedly giving a provocative speech against the government.

It's not just in Gujarat but also outside the state that the pro- and anti-Modi factions have taken up the cudgels against each other and as it appears it is going to be a fight to finish for claiming the leadership of the party ahead of the 2014 poll. Last Sunday, a right-wing ideologue came out with his guns blazing against Advani. He did not mince words in asking Advani to call it quits and gave enough indications that it was the Gujarat chief minister who needed to be anointed as the party leader.

The Sangh parivar papers and publications have also been participating in the battle of nerves, with the BJP mouthpiece Kamal Sandesh and the RSS mouthpiece Panchajanya criticising Modi's attempt to undermine the party interest to his personal charisma. Another RSS mouthpiece Organiser spoke in Modi's favour. Advani himself has used his blog to whiplash the party's present leadership.
Next Story
Share it