JOIN USAhead of the national executive meeting, BJP chief Amit Shah on Tuesday reached out to senior leaders L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi.
Though top BJP leadership described Shah’s one-one-one meetings with Advani and Joshi at their respective residences as “routine interactions”, party sources said that there were fears that some leaders may open up against the organisation and the government during the two day conclave in Bangalore beginning April 3.
A very senior party leader did not find anything unusual in the interaction despite queries to elicit reason for the Shah’s interaction with these two veteran leaders. The two have been sidelined since Narendra Modi became Prime Minister last May. In fact, post Shah’s coronation as BJP chief last August, they were dropped for the first time from the party’s highest decision making body parliamentary board and parked in a newly created advisory body Margdarshak Mandal. This virtually ended their involvement in active party politics.
The five member mandal, which includes Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh, has not even met once till now even though they were supposed to guide the party leadership.
Shah has been meeting them without media coming to known about it, clarified the senior BJP leader aware of the meetings. Interestingly, the BJP president’s interaction with two senior leaders came a day after its ideological mentor RSS is believed to have cautioned the BJP on perceived “disconnect” with workers during Monday’s meeting. The RSS has, however, got positive feedback from its swamsevaks on Modi government’s functioning.
Shah has now decided to reserve first and third Mondays of every month for meeting leaders putting in place also a grievance redressal mechanism.