Advani to quit post by December

The Rashtriya Swaymsevak Sangh (RSS) finally prevailed upon LK Advani to announce a definite time frame for stepping down from the post of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president. But this was not before the beleaguered leader made history as the first BJP president to openly criticise the "perception" that the RSS "micro-managed" the party.

Advani, who had been at loggerheads with the RSS after his controversial remarks on Pakistan founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, finally announced that he would quit office in December, after the party's Mumbai convention.

He was speaking on the last day of the party's national executive being held in Chennai.

Departing from tradition, Advani chose to make a concluding statement after former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's speech, an unprecedented move in party protocol.

The announcement clearly meant that the RSS had won this round with the BJP. But the effect of the announcement, senior leaders said, would only widen the rift between the two, since Advani's speech warned the party that perpetuating the "perception" that "no political or organisational decision could be taken without the consent of RSS functionaries" would "do no good either to the party or to the RSS".

According to top sources in the party, the stage for this announcement was set when Advani, in his inaugural address, had referred to the relationship between the RSS and the BJP as symbiotic rather than the parent-child configuration that it had been lent.

Sources said the RSS, which had, in a backroom deal during the crisis over the Jinnah remarks, asked that Advani quit in December, conveyed its anger at the statement on the second day of the executive on Saturday.

Advani had written a very explosive commentary on BJP-RSS relations as part of his speech but had to tone it down after senior leaders Jaswant Singh, M Venkaiah Naidu and Sanjay Joshi were shown the contents today, sources added.

Sources also confirmed that it was only after Vajpayee was shown the speech that a decision to make it public was made.

Advani, in his speech also warned the RSS that the impression that it micro-manages the affairs of the BJP would be harmful to the Sangh as well. "The RSS, too, must be concerned that such a perception will dwarf its greater mission of man-making and nation-building," his statement read.

He admitted that the Sangh Parivar gave valuable inputs for the BJP to take decisions, "but the BJP as a political party, is accountable to the people, its performance being periodically put to test in elections."

He outlined the achievements of the BJP in his three-page speech adding, "so in a democratic, multi party polity, an ideologically driven party like the BJP has to function in a manner that enables it to keep its basic ideological stances intact while at the same time expand itself to reach the large sections of people outside the layers of all ideology." While many party leaders had asked Advani to reconsider his resignation in June, no leader present at the national executive asked him to do the same today.

As one senior BJP leader and a minister in the previous NDA government said, "We had been anticipating this for some time. It has, in a way, cleared all confusion."

Vajpayee's speech, on the other hand, was a way of balancing the criticism of the RSS in Advani's speech. He praised both RSS and Advani. "Advaniji has tirelessly served the party, has always remained in the background and has been self-effacing at all time," he said.