While Gandhinagar MP LK Advani kicked off his Jan Chetna Yatra from Bihar on Monday, the response for his yatra in his home constituency in Gujarat has been lukewarm at best.
Despite Narendra Modi's delayed support for the yatra on his blog and avowing that he will welcome it in Gujarat, the participation from his home constituency that he represents, or even the state, is almost negligible.
Harin Pathak, member of Parliament from Ahmedabad (East), might be amongst the handful of BJP leaders who will attend parts of the yatra. Another BJP leader likely to join Advani outside Gujarat is Amit Thakar. Being an active member of the team working to ensure success of the yatra, Thakar will participate in the yatra along with a team of 40 youngsters.
Advani's office assured that political outreach programmes on the issues of corruption and black money keep going in Gujarat during the yatra before it reaches the state next month.
"Moreover, when in Gujarat, it will have full support of the entire state unit for two days," he said. But if Advani's past yatras are anything to go by, where participation from the state was overwhelming, the response this time around has been almost unnoticeable.
BJP Gujarat unit's spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Vijay Rupani said, "There are no plans to send party workers or join the yatra from beginning. All the state BJP units, from where the yatra will be passing, will welcome it in their respective states with states leaders om that state will join it. Gujarat BJP will also be joining the yatra, when it enters the state."
Interestingly, not even BJP's national vice-president Parashottam Rupala attended the flagging ceremony on Tuesday. The reason for this tepid mood is not apparent. Observers speculate that since cracks have appeared in equations between Modi and Advani, workers don't want to imperil their political career in the state - Modi's blog praise is yet to be digested in party circle.
The other side is of course the ubiquitous notion that Advani's connect with his constituency is diminishing rapidly. In fact, buzz also had it that he wouldn't have won from Gandhinagar in 2009 had it not been for Modi campaigning there himself.
Defending the situation, BJP sources offer a perspective that like earlier yatras, the scheduled of this yatra has a lot of breaks. A few are joining from the national BJP and each state unit has been assigned the task of ensuring success in their region.
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