New Delhi, September 3
RSS chief Mohanrao Bhagwat may have put Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani and BJP president Rajnath Singh on notice to quit their respective posts soon, but the notice itself has triggered fresh rivalry within the BJP, complicating the situation further for the organisation and making the succession process in the party that much more difficult.

In fact, for all the hype accompanying the first widely publicised interaction of the Sangh chief with BJP leaders, it seems he could not succeed in his mission of effecting a total revamp of the BJP leadership or at least announcing a time frame for it. Sources said that was to a large extent due to lack of unanimity in the Sangh itself on Advani and Rajnath’s successors.

When Bhagwat arrived here last week Rajnath was the first to visit the Sangh chief. Rajnath, under attack from Advani camp for encouraging groupism and infighting, reportedly offered to quit his post instantly. But he also complained that though after Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani he was the longest serving BJP president, in effect he did not get even six months to work independently without interference from Advani and his camp followers.

Rajnath had succeeded Advani in 2005 when Advani was removed for his praise of Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Pakistan. Sources said Rajnath told Bhagwat how the first six months of his tenure borrowed from Advani’s tenure he maintained a low profile, since he had to be elected formally at the end of these six months.

BJP organisational elections were followed by one after another state assembly elections which gave him to time to revamp the organisation. He was looking forward to take command after UP Assembly elections. But there the party was swept out, denting Rajnath’s moral authority.

By October 2007 there was pressure on him to declare Advani as the prime ministerial candidate and once that was done in December 2007 Advani just took over as the parallel power centre till the general election results.

After Rajnath meeting with Bhagwat, Advani camp followers namely Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, M Venkaiah Naidu and Ananth Kumar went to meet Bhagwat the next day. They reportedly complained of Rajnath encouraging groupism and infighting in the party. They were, however, told by Bhagwat that he would prefer a complete outsider to succeed Rajnath.

The next day Advani met Bhagwat. But before that Bhagwat went to Murli Manohar Joshi’s house for lunch where Joshi warned him against allowing Sushma to succeed Advani as LoP saying that he would not want to work under her.

When Advani met Bhagwat, he said he offered to step down. But he suggested putting in place a sound and consensual succession plan, lest there may be further chaos after him. And that is where the catch lies. Advani would like to move after a consensual succession plan has been put in place and Bhagwat also seemed to appreciate that.

But that seems to be a Catch 22 situation. Sources said as long as Rajnath/Advani duo are at the helm of affairs and their groups active it won’t be easy to find candidates for the two posts acceptable to all concerned.

Notwithstanding Bhagwat’s personal disinclination to appoint any of the four Advani camp followers, sources say the names of both Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj are still under consideration and so is Sushma and Joshi’s name for the LoP post. Other names like that of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan, B.S. Yedyurappa and even Narendra Modi have also been mentioned.

But clearly there is no unanimity in the BJP or even in the RSS over anyone and till then Advani can sit comfortably.