DNA

• Former PM’s letter to BJP meet leaves questions on Advani’s position open

Bhopal, Sep 22: Former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has not been able to make it to Bhopal to attend the BJP’s national executive meeting due to failing health. But he continues to cast a long shadow on the fortunes of his old friend and opposition leader LK Advani as the party’s choice for prime minister. A letter from Vajpayee which was read out at the meeting on Friday punctured a move by a number of senior party leaders to declare Advani as the “natural choice for a prime ministerial candidate”.

The central message in Vajpyee’s four-paragraph letter was: “I will soon return amongst you”. It was interpreted by some as indicating he may be tired but sees no reason to hang up his boots and hand over the reins to his former deputy. In his absence, he asked partymen to “collectively decide on a strategy for the future” and quoted a few lines from his poem” Aao phir se diya jalayen” (Let us light the lamp once again). He urged younger generation leaders to sweat it out in the sun to light the lamp.

Advani, however, can draw comfort from the fact that, after a long time since the Jinnah controversy in 2005, a number of senior BJP leaders openly came forward to declare that he was the “rightful and natural claimant” to the post. But these leaders were cautious enough to add that this would happen only if Vajpayee bowed out of the political arena.