Upset with party, LK Advani likely to skip BJP rally in Mumbai

TNN

New Delhi, 25 May 2012: Senior BJP leader L K Advani is likely to skip a rally in Mumbai on Friday and resturn to New Delhi. The senior leader has cited prior engagement as his reasons for not attending the rally, according to reports, but sources suggest he is unhappy with the state of affairs in the party.

 

The rally comes at the end of the two-day meeting of the BJP’s national executive in Mumbai.

 

Meanwhile, shedding his defiant posture after persuasion by party leaders, former Karnataka chief minister B S Yeddyurappa today left here for Mumbai to attend the concluding session of the BJP national executive meeting.

 

"I am leaving for Mumbai to greet Nitin Gadkari on his re-election as the party president for the second successive term", Yeddyurappa, who had earlier decided to skip the meet apparently upset over being sidelined, told reporters here.

 

Yeddyurappa was persuaded by his party top leaders including Gadkari and Arun Jaitley to participate in the executive which the state party strongman had said should discuss Karnataka party affairs also among other issues.

 

Earlier, BJP strongman and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi’s showing up at the meeting of BJP’s national executive on Thursday after the leadership and RSS caved in to his demand for the ouster of his bete noire Sanjay Joshi from the important party body, took centre stage.

 

The capitulation solidifies the Hindutva hardliner’s standing as the strongest party leader. The RSS leadership and BJP chief Nitin Gadkari who had resisted Modi’s demand finally blinked on Wednesday after the Gujarat CM threatened that all members of the national executive from Gujarat would quit if Joshi was not evicted.