As BJP announced that the party president Amit Shah will contest from Gandhinagar in Gujarat, an old picture of Advani filing nomination for the seat in 1991 went viral on social media.
Soon after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released a list of 184 candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections, announcing that the party president Amit Shah will contest from Gandhinagar in Gujarat, an old picture of Lal Krishna Advani filing nomination for the seat in 1991 went viral on social media.
In the picture, BJP patriarch Advani is seen filing the nomination form while Prime Minister Narendra Modi, then a rising figure in the BJP, is helping him. In the row behind them is Amit Shah, who was then an emerging leader.
Now, fast forward to 2019. Shah has been declared BJP's candidate from Gandhinagar seat and will soon file his nomination. In a way, Shah's life has come full circle in Gandhinagar.
Naranpura, from where Shah had won the Assembly election in 2012 before he became Rajya Sabha member, is located in Ahmedabad city, but falls in Gandhinagar Lok Sabha constituency.
After winning the seat for the first time in 1991, Advani has held it since 1998. But this time, the BJP's state unit had demanded that either Prime Minister Narendra Modi or Shah should contest Lok Sabha election from the state this time. State BJP leaders had also demanded that Shah contest from Gandhinagar, a BJP bastion.
The BJP had sent observers on March 16 to seek opinion of party workers and leaders in Gandhinagar, and most of them favoured Shah, party observer Nimaben Acharya had said.
Workers felt that as the seat had been held by a national leader (Advani), someone among the party's central leadership should contest from there, another party observer Prithviraj Patel had said.
"Neither has the party approached him nor has he approached the party so far," Advani's personal secretary Deepak Chopra earlier told PTI when asked if the BJP had urged Advani to contest from Gandhinagar yet again.
While Advani, 91, may retire from politics Shah, the right hand man of Prime Minister Modi, is likely to take his place as Gandhinagar MP in Lok Sabha. The fortunes of Shah are still on the rise. Now a Rajya Sabha member, he may return as a senior minister if the BJP succeeds in securing power at the Centre for the second consecutive term.
End of road for Advani
It appears to be the end of the road in electoral politics for Advani. Advani, 91, who has served as Union home minister and deputy prime minister, has won from Gandhinagar six times.
The Lok Sabha seat is one of the safest for the BJP in Gujarat and Advani won from here by a margin of 4.83 lakh votes in 2014. After winning the seat for the first time in 1991, he retained the constituency in 1998, 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014.
Credited for orchestrating the BJP's rise to a pre-eminent position in the late 80s and 90s along with Atal Bihari Vajpayee after it won only two Lok Sabha seats in 1984.
Advani was moved out of the BJP's highest decision-making body, Parliamentary Board, in 2014 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi led the party to victory and Shah was made its president.
He was made a member of Margdarshak Mandal (group of mentors), a body which has never met.
He did not make any representation to stake claim for Gandhinagar seat before the BJP observers.
The BJP veteran won from Gandhinagar for the first time in 1991, and retained the constituency in 1998, 1999, 2004, 2009 and 2014.
In 1996 he did not contest, citing the Babri Masjid demolition case against him.
Now, with Advani stepping aside for Shah in Gandhinagar, the generational change in the BJP is now complete.
(With PTI inputs)
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