LK Advani's resignation shocks coast

Known for his “liberal” outlook, LK Advani was a favourite leader with the state’s coastal district which  may still refer to as ‘the fort of the BJP’. Some leaders prefer to call it Advani’s ‘karmabhoomi’ in Karnataka, far away from his Lok Sabha constituency of Gandhinagar in Gujarat.

Ever since he was incarcerated in Bangalore Central Jail during the Emergency, he became chummy with VS Acharya. Their friendship last for over 40 years (ending with the latter’s death in 2012),  during which Advani studied the Karnataka coast like no other leader in the party.

“The coast has a right to be shocked. I would have been surprised if it were not so,” said senior party leader Somashekar Bhat, who took care of his correspondence when they were in jail in Bangalore.

RSS leaders, who were however not very approving of Advani and Vajpayee’s liberal approach and the emphasis they laid on internal democracy, feel that the BJP had been given a mandate by the RSS back in 1980 to work on the Hindutva plank. But during the last few years that mandate had been losing steam, and it was partially due to too much liberalism.

According to these RSS leaders, in the case of Narendra Modi, after 2002 the Gujarat model of Hindutva or majority rule had gained momentum and Modi had been successful in bringing even the hostile minorities into the mainstream of the society. A major portion of the minorities in that state were now following Modi, which was actually the model which the Hindutva plank given to BJP should have worked on.

BJP leaders here feel that Advani was too hasty in showing his resentment. As he was the first leader after Vajpayee who had propagated that the party was supreme and individuals were only cogs in the party machinery.

“But he should have given party leaders like Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and others who attended the BJP’s national executive at Panaji to approach him and brief him about the decisions they, before he took decided to resign from all party posts,” a senior BJP leader, Gujjadi Prabhakar Nayak, said.

However, party workers watching the development had a certain degree of nervousness. “We have already suffered a blow in the Karnataka BJP unit following BS Yeddyurappa’s episode. This was another blow that was not needed,” said Satish Shenoy, a worker.