NEW DELHI: Even as members of India’s new Lok Sabha were sworn in on Thursday flaunting the nation’s impressive bouquet of languages – Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj took the oath in Sanskrit – the auspicious day seemed to bring more embarrassment for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s founder leader and its veteran architect L. K. Advani. Reports called it “a sign of the changing times” that while the party won the Lok Sabha elections with a thumping majority, Mr Advani appeared increasingly sidelined.
“Within days of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government coming to power, senior party leader Lal Krishna Advani has been moved out of the room of the NDA Working Chairman,” CNN-IBN channel reported.
Mr Advani had occupied the room allotted to the NDA Working Chairman for over a decade.
The room had the nameplate of Mr Advani along with former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who was the NDA chairman.
However, the nameplate of Mr Advani has been removed from outside the room while Mr Vajpayee’s nameplate still stands there.
In the first session of Parliament that started on Wednesday, Mr Advani has been sitting in a make-shift arrangement in the BJP office in Parliament.
The NDA is yet to elect its new Working Chairman. There are reports that Mr Advani will be once again elected for the post but there is no official confirmation over the issue yet, the channel said.
Since the BJP has absolute majority on its own, the NDA does not have much influence over the government and the post of the chairman will be a nominal authority, it said.
Another senior leader who is not heard of much is former party president Murli Manohar Joshi.
He was made to vacate his Varanasi seat for Mr. Modi and won the election from Kanpur. Mr Joshi was an early critic of the move to nominate Mr Modi as the party’s prime ministerial candidate, as was Mr Advani.
Published in Dawn, June 6th, 2014
