An informal meeting of senior BJP leaders at L K Advani’s residence is likely to snowball into the next topic of internal bickering in the party. As coincidence would have it, BJP president Rajnath Singh was out of town for just the day, whereas Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi who is in town was present. The presence of former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi Vijay Kapoor in the meeting has also amused insiders. BJP spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy said the “informal meeting” was to discuss the agenda for a meeting of NDA chief ministers, which is being planned next month. Besides Modi and Kapoor, Arun Jaitley, Arun Shourie, Jaswant Singh and Sudheendra Kulkarni were present. Soon after the Gujarat elections, Advani began to use his authority as the BJP-NDA prime ministerial candidate and called an ‘informal strategy session of the party’. Rajnath took it as an affront on his authority and quickly moved to formally announce an election campaign committee with 18 members. Rajnath himself was declared as chairman of the committee and Sushma Swaraj its convener. After the first meeting of the election campaign committee, it was also announced that Swaraj would also coordinate with NDA partners. Ironically, she was not present in Saturday’s meeting.Party sources said Rajnath Singh was “aware” of the meeting. He left for Tripura in the morning.
