Ahmedabad: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has indicated he may not attend his party’s national executive meeting to be held on May 24 and 25 in Delhi this month.
Modi is reportedly upset about the reinduction of Sanjay Joshi, a long-time rival, into the party and his presence at the party meet. De-spite Modi’s ob-jections, Joshi played a large role in the party’s planning for the UP elections earlier this year. Modi refused to campaign in UP, saying he had his own yatras to finish in election-bound Gujarat. Even when those finished, Modi did not head to UP. The BJP placed a poor third.
If Modi does not attend, it will be the second time he will skip a national executive meeting seemingly because of Joshi’s presence. He had refused to attend one held in New Delhi in October last year; his excuse then was that he did not go out of Gujarat during the Navratra festival.
But, sources say, there are other more core issues. Modi, they say, is opposed to a second term for Nitin Gadkari as BJP president and staying away from the party meet would record his displeasure at RSS moves in this direction. Modi’s own ambition to move to a national role in the party could be tied in with this, the party sources say.
A second term for Gadkari is also likely to be opposed by other senior party leaders like L.K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj and Murli Manohar Joshi, the sources say, adding that some state BJP units like those in Bihar, Jharkhand and Rajasthan, too have voiced concern at Gadkari’s style of functioning.
