Jaitley Misses BJP CEC Meet
The widening faction feud in the Bharatiya Janata Party was out in the open, as senior party leader Arun Jaitley missed a key meeting of the party’s Central Election Committee (CEC) in New Delhi on Tuesday, a day after patriarch LK Advani attempted to dismiss media reports suggesting a rift in the party as mere speculation.
Jaitley yet again missed a meeting of the key grouping due to his differences with party president Rajnath Singh that first cropped up over the appointment of former Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) president Sudhanshu Mittal as co-coordinator for political affairs in the northeastern states.
The meeting was attended by NDA prime ministerial hopeful LK Advani, Venkaiah Naidu, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and BJP national chief Rajnath Singh.
“Jaitley has raised some issues, which the party is trying to resolve. But we don’t discuss intra-party issues in public,” said Venkaiah Naidu while speaking to correspondents.
Jaitley, the best election strategist in the BJP arsenal, has refused to budge from the warpath for anything except the reversal of Mittal’s appointment.
With all else failing, the fast widening party worries could soon see Advani step in to resolve the issues and bring the warring leaders to a mutually agreeable middle path, failing which the BJP tandem is sure to suffer.
