New Delhi: The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Rajnath Singh’s high praise for the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in the US has annoyed a section of the party.
Modi’s detractors feel Singh’s praise for Modi as the most popular leader of the party in a foreign land is unwarranted.
The faction headed by former deputy prime minister Lal Krishna Advani is of the view that Singh’s praise for Modi has undermined role of other party leaders, particularly Advani, in nurturing the party.
According to BJP insiders, Advani, leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj and veteran leader Jaswant Singh have not taken to Modi’s praise kindly.
Singh along with party general secretary Ananth Kumar, who is considered close to Advani, is currently on five-day tour of the USA.
“I have named him [Modi] as the campaign head in view of his image, popularity and commitment to the party... He is a crowd puller not only in Gujarat but also in Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
“From north to south and east to west, he is one single leader with a national appeal. His popularity will help the party in the elections,” Singh said on Sunday while addressing a press conference in New York, literally stopping short of naming Modi as BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.
Modi was appointed chairman of BJP’s central campaign committee last month despite objections of the Advani faction which was pushing for collective leadership.
Swaraj left Goa within hours of the announcement of giving the key post to Modi which many feel has put him ahead of others in the race to be named BJP’s prime ministerial candidate.
The next day, Advani resigned from all party posts and withdrew his resignation only after intervention of Mohan Bhagwat, chief of BJP’s ideological fountainhead Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
While officially, the BJP president’s US tour is meant to interact with the vast Indian diaspora, BJP sources say that it is all about lobbying to get the visa ban imposed on Modi in the wake of 2002 Gujarat communal riots revoked. Modi first applied for a US visa in 2005 which was rejected. He has since been using video conferencing to interact with the US-based Indian diaspora.
Singh made no bones about the real intention of his US visit. “We will request the US government to clear Narendra Modi’s visa. UK and the European Union recently lifted visa ban on Modi while Washington continues to insist that there is no change in their policy on this issue.
Singh is under pressure of the RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat to clear all hurdles in the way of Modi becoming the next Indian prime minister. A change in the US stand on Modi’s visa would thus become a handy tool during elections.
BJP think tank is of the opinion that Washington may have to change its stand on Modi soon since it could impact Indo-US ties if Modi becomes the prime minister after next year’s general elections.
BJP traditionally has enjoyed close ties with the US. The two countries came closer during 1998-2004 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee served as the prime minister of a BJP-led coalition.
There seems to be a clear shift in the BJP policy since it had earlier maintained that the US visa ban on Modi did not matter. BJP now says that denying visa to a democratically elected chief minister is unethical and an unfriendly act by Washington.
