New Delhi: While there has been no official announcement by the BJP on whether or not senior leader L.K. Advani will continue to hold the post, it is more or less clear that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was elected NDA leader, will be the NDA chairman.
Sidelined within the party, Mr Advani was not allotted any post in the Modi Cabinet.
Though he apparently wanted to be the Lok Sabha Speaker, the party decided to give it to senior leader Sumitra Mahajan. Also, unlike Wednesday, Mr Advani did not occupy the seat next to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. Instead, he sat in the front row along with senior Union ministers Sushma Swaraj and Rajnath Singh and took the oath there itself. He, however, did not sit next to Prime Minister Modi even though the seat was vacant.
In fact, Mr Advani was seen apparently telling parliamentary affairs minister M. Venkaiah Naidu that he be allowed to sit in the second row but was requested to take the front row seat.
Mr Advani continues to be BJP Parliamentary Party chairman but, since any announcement in this regard is yet to be made, the senior leader did not sit in the main chair in the party’s parliamentary party office and sat on a sofa. He interacted with the media informally but refused to comment on the government. He recalled how he had once told former PM Manmohan Singh about the concept of a confederation of India and Pakistan, as mooted by BJP ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay.
In the afternoon, when he came to the House after a break, he was looking for a seat and finally sat in the eighth row.
