 "BJP veterans queer pitch for Modi, Shah")
This is the first challenge within the party to the supremacy of Modi and Shah in the past 18 months since the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power at the Centre. Both Advani and Joshi are former BJP presidents and current members of the party's Marg Darshak Mandal (mentor group).
However, Modi and Shah continued to find defenders in the party - including three former presidents.
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In their strongly worded statement dated November 11 (but issued on Tuesday evening), Advani, Joshi, former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Shanta Kumar and former Union foreign minister Yashwant Sinha asked for a "thorough review" of the reasons for the defeat in the Bihar Assembly elections, the results of which were declared on Sunday.
NDA - whose extensive election campaign was led by Modi and framed by Shah - managed to get only 58 seats in the 243-seat Bihar Assembly, losing to the Grand Alliance of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and Rashtriya Janata Dal Chief Lalu Prasad.
Advani and co. also called for a review of how the party "is being forced to kowtow to a handful, and how its consensual character has been destroyed." In a direct attack on Shah, and by association the Prime Minister, they said the review "must not be done by the very persons who have managed and who have been responsible for the campaign in Bihar".
But Modi and Shah have quite a few defenders as well.
Merely a few hours after the statement of Advani's group, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu and Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari - all three of them former BJP presidents - issued a counter statement claiming the party had won the Lok Sabha as well as state elections under the current leadership.
Their statement also referred to Monday's BJP parliamentary board meeting, where the Bihar debacle had been discussed. Evoking the leadership of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani, it said: "They had set a healthy precedent of the party collectively taking up responsibility for victories and defeats. The party would certainly welcome any guidance and suggestion of our seniors in this regard."
Sources said the statement of the veterans had been issued with the full knowledge of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, BJP's parent organisation, which fears that its chief Mohan Bhagwat might be held responsible for the Bihar debacle.
Since, the Bihar debacle, there have been several BJP Members of Parliament who have criticised Modi and Shah for it.
On Tuesday, Bhola Singh singled out Modi and Shah the Bihar loss. Former Union minister Arun Shourie has gone on record more than once to criticise the prime minister, the party president and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley for having centralised decision making in the BJP.
In August 2014, soon after Shah took over the reins of the party, Advani and Joshi were moved out of the parliamentary board - the BJP's top decision making body - and included in the newly set up "mentors' group", which is yet to officially meet even once.
But now, the veterans have hit back at Shah's most vulnerable moment.