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| BJP divide deepens | | |
New Delhi, March 17: The rift within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) intensified on Tuesday, with senior leader Arun Jaitley skipping a second meet of the party’s Central Election Committee.
Reports said party vice president Venkaiah Naidu failed to convince Jaitley to attend the meeting. Jaitely is unhappy with party president Rajnath Singh over the appointment of businessman Sudhanshu Mittal as BJP's co-convenor of Northeast region.
The CEC meeting, chaired by Rajnath Singh, was attended by senior leaders LK Advani, Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Gopinath Munde and Bal Apte. Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi also attended the meeting.
Sources said Jaitley has made it clear to the party that he would not accept anything less than Mittal’s removal.
However, Rajnath has indicated that he is in no mood to accede to the demand, and even held a meeting with Mittal on Monday night to drive home the point.
The CEC is likely to become the first casualty of the growing divide, with sources saying prior to the meet that the party was thinking of winding up the Committee today itself if Jaitely failed to show up yet again. He had also skipped the first meet of the CEC last week, and indicated on other occasions too that he was in no mood to relent until and unless Mittal was removed.
The BJP’s parent organisation, the RSS has also intervened to make sure that the Rajnath-Jaitley stalemate does not hurt the party before the Lok Sabha polls.
RSS general secretary Suresh Soni called up Jaitley on Saturday night to find a solution to the stand-off, sources said.
Senior leaders Venkaiah Naidu and Ravi Shankar Prasad also said efforts were underway to find a solution.
Rajnath also had a meeting with BJP's prime ministerial candidate LK Advani last night where the stalemate is understood to have figured.
Advani has insisted there was no rift in the party. "This issue may make a good story for you but there are no differences within the party," he told reporters.
If the BJP decides to wind up the CEC today, it would authorise Advani to finalise the party's remaining Lok Sabha candidates. Roughly 100 nominees are yet to be declared.
Party sources said the authorisation could be given to Advani along with Rajnath and the meeting would be held at Advani's residence.
Advani had to convene a separate meeting at his residence on Friday to finalise candidates of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh as Jaitley kept himself away from the CEC meet.
Mittal however attended a key meeting of the party at the BJP headquarters to decide upon the seats for Assam.
The meeting chaired by Rajnath was also attended by Northeast convenor SS Ahluwalia among others.
When asked if he could offer to resign in the wake of the stand taken by Jaitley, Mittal said, "I am ready to jump into a river, if the party asks me to do so. I will do everything that I am told to do."
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