Advani's current predicament

Lal Krishna Advani may be in the autumn of his political career but isn't ready to fade away like any old general

BJP patriarch Lal Krishna Advani is in the autumn of his political career. His party's holding company, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), is determined to bid the original rath yatri goodbye. But 86-year-old Advani isn't ready to fade away like any old general.

 

The RSS under Sarsanghachalak Mohan Bhagwat has for some years been uncomfortable with BJP's old guard. It is also increasingly unwilling to tolerate them dictating terms.

That RSS refused to let BJP leadership of Narendra Modi, Rajnath Singh and others to concede to Advani's demand that he be the party's candidate from Bhopal instead of Gandhinagar was a clear message to the veteran leader to call it a day.

 

Advani's contemporary Murli Manohar Joshi has suffered a similar fate, being shifted against his will from his Lok Sabha constituency of Varanasi to Kanpur to make way for party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

Others like Kalraj Mishra, Lalji Tandon and Jaswant Singh have been treated with matching disrespect. Party president Rajnath Singh has replaced Tandon as BJP's candidate from Lucknow seat while Jaswant Singh has threatened to contest as an independent if not given the party ticket from Barmer. Unlike Modi or Rajnath, none of the old guard were accorded the 'privilege' to choose for themselves a 'safe seat'.

 

Advani is nervous about contesting again from Gandhinagar, his parliamentary constituency since 1991, because of having publicly opposed Modi's ascendancy as BJP's prime ministerial candidate. Two of Modi's closest confidantes Amit Shah and Anandi Patel are MLAs from assembly constituencies that fall in the Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency.

Advani believes his victory would be at Modi's mercy. Advani's last electoral outing in 2009 wasn't particularly easy. The BJP leadership, at RSS's behest, offered Rajya Sabha seats to both Joshi and Advani which the two refused.

 

But Advani is no Mishra, Tandon, Singh or even Joshi. He along with Atal Bihari Vajpayee brought BJP from a lowly two seats in 1984 to leading a coalition government at the Centre from 1998 to 2004. He was also NDA's prime ministerial candidate in 2009.

 

He is also not somebody to call it a day from electoral politics just because he is old. No wonder he admired writer Khushwant Singh for leading an active life even into his late 90s.

Last month, Advani attended writer Khushwant Singh's 99th birthday. He blogged about the meeting under 'How RSS gave meaning to my life'. 

 

The veteran leader recounted how he called upon Khushwant on February 2 to wish him on completing "ninety nine years of his very active life". In the blog, Advani reminisced about his meeting Khushwant a month after the latter turned 98 in 2013.

"I have not read any other author who could write as well, and with such lucidity, at such an advanced age," said Advani of Khushwant, quoting paragraphs from the autobiography that alluded to the writer's zest for life, his love for whiskey, meeting interesting people and friends, etc.

 

The second last chapter of Khushwant Singh's book 'Twelve tips to live long and be happy' seemed to have caught particular attention of Advani. "My daughter Pratibha said to me: Without even reading this book you seem to be following most of the tips give by Khushwant Singh. Two of the most invaluable tops held out by the book are: Don't lose your temper, and don't tell a lie! And you follow both these almost intuitively," wrote Advani in his blog.

 

It isn't known if Advani lost his temper at being denied his wish for a 'safe seat'. But the veteran leader isn't known to lie and it would be safe to assume the patriarch, who currently feels deeply slighted and marginalised, would continue to keep the BJP leadership on their toes in the months and years to come.