New Delhi:
LK Advani and Narendra Modi on Thursday came face to face at a meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Board to strategise on the Lok Sabha elections, in a significant interaction coming less than a month after the patriarch's revolt of the Gujarat Chief Minister's elevation.
Advani and Modi sat side by side during the three-hour meeting of the Parliamentary Board, the highest decision-making body of BJP, and subsequent meeting of its members with party general secretaries.
Sources claimed that Advani's body language was positive" was throughout the meetings. Advani gave suggestions on a couple of issues during the Board meeting and appeared to endorse the views expressed by Modi and others, they said.
"We have unshackled ourselves from our internal problems. The issue is now to take on the Congress on issues of corruption, price rise, lack of economic growth and internal security," a party leader said.
The attendance of the meeting by the two leaders together assumes significance as Advani had revolted against Modi's appointment as Campaign Committee Chairman and resigned from all the party posts on June 10. He took it back after RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat intervened.
The two meetings discussed ways to take on the Congress-led government in run up to the elections.
The issues that figured in these meetings included alleged "misuse" of CBI against the backdrop of probe report into Ishrat killing and government's decision to promulgate Ordinance on Food security.
"Ideas were invited and discussed by the party top brass from the general secretaries," a source said.
The alleged misuse of CBI by the Centre was discussed in the Parliamentary Board, the sources said, citing the CBI chargesheet in the Ishrat Jahan encounter case as the latest case.
Though Modi and then Gujarat state minister for Home Amit Shah have not been named in the chargesheet, BJP has objected to the chargesheet for describing the encounter as "fake" and charging that Jahan and three others were drugged and killed in cold-blood.
"The Parliamentary Board discussed the misuse of CBI and how Congress-led government is using it as political tool.
It is using the agency against the Opposition leaders. We strongly condemn it," BJP General Secretary Ananth Kumar said.
The Food Security Ordinance approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday was also discussed. BJP is opposed to the Bill in its present form and will press for following the Chhattisgarh Food Security Act which covers 90 per cent of the population.
