In Modi Era, Little Place For BJP Seniors

NEW DELHI: They anchored the rise of the BJP in the 1990s and guided it through the tumultuous years in the opposition but do not appear to have a role in the party's first full-majority government. L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi, both past presidents of the party, now appear to have a largely ceremonial role in the Narendra Modi dispensation though they continue to command the respect of party workers.

Both Advani and Joshi are founding members of the BJP and were functionaries of its predecessor, the Jana Sangh. Advani and Joshi played a central role in the party's sharp rise in the 1990s. Advani was deputy prime minister during the first NDA government but could not deliver victory when the BJP projected him as its prime ministerial candidate in the 2009 general elections.

Advani, a perpetual "yatri" who nursed prime ministerial ambitions till last year, is now a "guardian", "patriarch" and "guide" to the BJP rank and file. Joshi, whose reports as chairman of the Public Affairs Committee kept the UPA-II government on the edge, is also seen to have an "advisory" role for the present.

A major reason for Advani and Joshi's apparent isolation from governance in the second National Democratic Alliance government is the nature of the Bharatiya Janata Party's victory in the April-May Lok Sabha elections under Modi's stewardship. With the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological patron of the BJP, also keen to herald and sustain a generational change in the party, there appear to be limited options for the "seniors" in the party, including Advani, Joshi, Shanta Kumar and others.

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