Narendra Modi wants to be an Atal

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Narendra Modi wants to be an Atal

                                

New Delhi: The fear that his one-time protégé Narendra Modi could ensure his defeat from former safe seat Gandhinagar is forcing BJP patriarch L.K. Advani to look for a safer seat outside Gujarat, while the Gujarat strongman, intent on giving himself a pan-India profile, plans to venture out of his home state and fight from Uttar Pradesh. 

The proposed move to contest from UP is being seen as Modi’s attempt to send a signal that his “charisma” is not confined to his home state. The Lok Sabha berths, Modi’s camp is looking at include Lucknow, Varanasi and Allahabad.

As Modi gets ready for Mission 2014, a covert battle between him and his bete noire, Advani is raging. While Modi draws his support from within the party, Advani is relying on his NDA card, and his acceptability as the ‘non-Modi’ , the NDA face, to keep the party’s allies by his side.

That Advani has begun projecting himself as the only leader who could hold the NDA together in a possible quid pro quo for the BJP refraining from projecting Modi as the Prime Ministerial candidate, became evident when on Wednesday Advani spoke to Bihar chief minister, Nitish Kumar and JD(U) chief, Sharad Yadav asking them not to pull out. So far, the JD(U), which has made several acerbic comments about Modi has threatened to pull out. 

Modi’s blueprint

Sensing that Uttar Pradesh with 80 Lok Sabha seats would be the main battlefield for the 2014 polls, Modi and his close aide, Amit Shah, who took over the BJP’s state unit in UP on Wednesday, have begun preparing the Modi blueprint.

At this juncture, BJP has only 10 Lok Sabha seats in UP, the party is faction-ridden and lacks a leader with a mass appeal. Advani has been trying to prop up Varun Gandhi as the BJP’s face in UP.

Modi’s entry in UP will also unsettle the old guard in the state. This particular set of old-timers, thus far in the Advani camp include Lalji Tandon and Kalraj Mishra among others, on record saying that “there can be no BJP without Advani.”