Advani trains guns on PM

The fracas over government formation in Jharkhand and Bihar is turning out to be an opportunity for the BJP to prove a point. The party has been crying foul over dual centres of power in the Manmohan Singh government, saying that UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi was acting as the "Super prime minister". And the events of the last week has given the BJP the necessary fodder for the charge.

BJP President LK Advani spoke publicly about the fact that when he called up the Prime Minister over the crisis in Jharkhand, Singh redirected him to Home Minister Shivraj Patil. This, Advani says, shows how the Prime Minister was out of the loop of things political.

In fact, when Advani met Singh this morning he again reminded him of the controversial role the Goa and Jharkhand governors had played vis a vis the government. According to sources, the Prime Minister said the governors had acted on their own assessment of the situation. Advani lost no time in telling Singh that perhaps the governors had "erred" in their judgment, justifying their recall.

While it is hardly likely that the Prime Minister will accede to the recommendation by the principle Opposition, Advani's message was directed instead to the public at large.

According to sources, the party's game plan is to show that the Prime Minister, while an able administrator, is quite out of his depth as far as real politik is concerned. "How can you take him seriously as a political Prime Minister? In the past 10 years, he has not even tried to win a Lok Sabha seat," said a BJP leader.

Not just that, the BJP also wants to prove that when it comes to political operations, it is the writ of 10 Janpath which runs. The BJP's first strike on the Prime Minister's image failed when their accusation that Singh had been rude to them in a meeting did not stick. This particular strategem may just give them the results they want.