Himalayan News Service

New Delhi, July 18:

L K Advani will continue as both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president and the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha for now, party spokesman VK Malhotra said today. “Advani holds both the posts and will keep them for now,” Malhotra said after a meeting of party leaders at former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s residence. “He is also the leader of the BJP parliamentary party.” The remarks came amid reports that the party had put off its national executive meeting of July 21-23 after a virtual revolt against Advani over the weekend. Malhotra declined to comment on the crisis, insisting that the meeting at Vajpayee’s

official residence only talked about the upcoming monsoon session of parliament. “We are giving 50 notices for discussions in parliament,” Malhotra said, listing as some of the issues Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s pro-British comments, infiltration into Jammu and Kashmir and terrorism.

He added that the BJP also discussed coordination with its National Democratic Alliance allies.

Yesterday, Advani sought a truce with his ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which along with some senior BJP colleagues, had demanded Advani resign from one of the posts. Vajpayee yesterday told reporters in Gwalior that the BJP believed in the principle of one man one post. And senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu admitted that there was a problem about Advani being the president of the BJP and also the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha. Also yesterday, a meeting between RSS and BJP leaders including Advani — the first after the controversy over his remarks about Pakistan’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah — appeared to have prepared a roadmap for avoiding collision between the ideological parent and its political arm.

“The (BJP) leaders assured (the RSS) that we intended to address the issues raised by them and move forward,” Naidu told reporters after a meeting of BJP general secretaries. Advani, Naidu and senior BJP leaders Jaswant Singh and Sanjay Joshi had met the RSS leaders at the organisation’s headquarters here to discuss solution to the ongoing ideological crisis in the party. Reiterating BJP’s “unique and special” relation with the RSS, Naidu said this would continue. “We have cordial relations with the RSS and we will continue that. There is no secret about it.”