Senior leaders' egos get in way of India meeting
National Executive meeting is important and is expected to take some important decisions
New Delhi: The unresolved ego clash between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) national president Nitin Gadkari and the Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi is threatening to take the sheen off the upcoming Mumbai National Executive meeting of India's principal opposition party.
The two leaders have not been on talking terms for sometime and the chances of Modi attending the May 24-25 meeting are slated to be slim considering Modi has been avoiding meeting Gadkari ever since he reinstated Modi's bete noire, Sanjay Joshi, in the organisation despite protests by Modi.
The Gujarat chief minister kept away from campaigning during the recently conducted assembly elections various states.
"We are making efforts to persuade him [Modi] to set aside his differences with Gadkari and put the party before an individual. This National Executive meeting is important and is expected to take some important decisions where the presence of a senior leader like Modi is required. But then, you can never promise 100 per cent presence at any meeting," said a senior central office bearer of the party.
Respect
According to him, one sure way to get Modi to attend the Mumbai meeting is if Gadkari calls him up and invites him personally, which is unlikely to happen. "Modi may be a big leader, but Gadkari is the president. Modi should respect the chair he holds if not the man holding it," said the BJP leader.
Modi last attended the national executive meeting a year ago in Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow and skipped the next meeting held in Delhi in September last year under the pretext of his preoccupation with the Navratri festival.
