Advani upset with Gadkari, BJP lends support to party chief

There is no end to the troubles of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Nitin Gadkari as senior leaders of the party came out in the open demanding for his resignation from the top post because of the ongoing allegations of financial wrongdoings.

The problem increased further just before the core group meeting on Tuesday evening when LK Advani refused to take part in the meeting leading to murmurs that Advani didn’t want Gadkari to continue as the BJP chief and he favoured that the BJP President should resign from the top post even before Gadkari completed his remaining term of 6 weeks.

Although Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, and general secretary Ananth Kumar spent more than an hour Advani’s residence to convince him, Advani didn’t attend the meet. However, BJP chose to follow the dictum of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and have decided to back Gadkari as the BJP President.

“We had called S Gurumurthy for the meeting. He gave a detailed presentation on allegations of financial wrongdoings by Nitin Gadkari. The BJP is of the view that Nitin Gadkari has done no legal or moral wrong and he is ready to face an inquiry. We have full faith in the leadership of BJP President and we ask BJP leaders and cadre not air views which would hurt the party,” said Ravi Shankar Prasad, BJP spokesperson who read the joint statement issues by Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj after the meeting.  

A day after Mahesh Jethmalani resigned from the national executive committee (NEC) and demanded Gadkari’s resignation, Ram Jethmalani, Mahesh Jethmalani’s father, also opening demanded for Gadkari’s resignation and claimed that former finance minister Yashwant Sinha, former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh and Shatrughan Sinha also supported his demand and wanted Gadkari to resign as the party chief.

However, realising the extent of the internal problems in the BJP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) asked its trusted lieutenant S Gurumurthy to study the accounts of Gadkari’s firms and try to convince Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh not to make public statements against Gadkari.

Gurumurthy met both Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh and categorically told them that there was nothing illegal in the account details of Gadkari and there was no reason for him to resign. The RSS is of the view that Gadkari should remain BJP chief and he should not resign because of the ongoing allegations against him.

RSS has also asked BJP leaders to conduct and internal probe to find out who are the people within the organisation who are responsible for the repeated corruption allegations against Gadkari. RSS wants to end this debate against Gadkari so that the BJP President could get a second term in January 2013 which has already been cleared by the national council after amending the constitution of BJP in Surajkund, Haryana meeting this year.

Meanwhile, the BJP chief also started a damage control spree and met senior leaders LK Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha and Arun Jaitley, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha, along with other general secretaries of the party, trying to ask for support from the three senior leaders of the party. Soon after Gadkari’s meeting with Sushma Swaraj, the senior BJP leader categorically said that she supported Nitin Gadkari as BJP President.

Later in the day, Sushma Swaraj and Balbir Punj, in-charge of Gujarat, also met Advani to discuss the ongoing debate surrounding Gadkari.

As a result of the open attacks from Ram Jethmalani, Jaswant Singh and Yashwant Sinha, others in the party, Vinay Katiyar, and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi also met during the day to discuss the corruption allegations against the BJP President. Both the leaders are of the view that the ongoing corruption allegations Gadkari had damaged the anti-corruption movement of the BJP and action should be taken to improve the situation.

Apart from the allegations of corruption, Gadkari also faced resentment on his recent statement comparing the IQ levels of Swami Vivekanand and underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. RSS also asked Gadkari to apologise for his statement and told him to be careful while making public statements.