Goa CM may not meet Advani in Delhi

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar will be in New Delhi Wednesday to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, but is unlikely to meet disgruntled BJP stalwart L.K. Advani, a BJP leader here said Tuesday.

BJP's Goa vice president Wilfred Mesquita said: "He (Parrikar) will be in New Delhi tomorrow (Wednesday) for a meeting with the prime minister. We don't know if he will meet Advani. We do not have his schedule."

He added that Parrikar would lead an all-party delegation from Goa to Manmohan Singh requesting him to bestow special status on the state.

He also ruled out that the state unit would write to Advani, imploring him to take back his resignation from key party posts.

"Who are we to write to him? He is a much taller leader than all of us," Mesquita said.

On the eve of the three-day BJP national convention in Goa, which concluded Sunday, it was Parrikar who set the Modi ball rolling by saying that the Gujarat chief minister should be the face of the BJP in the 2014 polls, a move opposed by Advani.

A day after Modi's appointment as the chairman of the party's election management committee, Advani Monday resigned from all posts he held in the BJP.

Since Monday, leaders of the BJP have been making a beeline to Advani's residence in New Delhi's Prithviraj road, to persuade him to withdraw his resignation. So far, the octogenarian leader has remained firm on his resolve.