Left, WTO on top of BJP's agenda

Meanwhile, Sanjay quits as gen secy

When Bharatiya Janata Party General Secretary Pramod Mahajan was asked to take on the responsibility of organising the party's 25th anniversary jamboree, he reportedly told senior leaders that he did not want the function to be dominated by speculation of any sort. It was, and not just over the next BJP president, but the reasons that led to BJP General Secretary Sanjay Joshi's resignation from the party.

Joshi, who resigned from the post late night, after some audio and video cassettes featuring him found their way to 20 top leaders of the party, went underground, with party leaders maintaining a grim silence on his whereabouts.

He was thought to have gone to Nagpur to the RSS headquarters to give a personal explanation for the tapes. Party leader M Venkiah Naidu conceded that the tapes had been received on December 16. However, since the courier company responsible for the despatch was a Bhopal-based one, Naidu felt there were elements out to defame the RSS. Joshi, he said had filed an FIR in Bhopal ,and had quit pending an enquiry.

Joshi was sent to the party by the RSS and played an important role in keeping the Sangh informed of BJP President LK Advani's plans, when the latter was asked by the parivar to resign earlier this year.

The current scandal was the last thing the BJP required in the midsat of the convention. It obscured all other developments at the Mumbai meeting, including the pressures and pulls over whether LK Advani will be able to remain as the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

Following reports that a section of the BJP leadership did not appreciate his speech regarding the expulsion of 10 Lok Sabha MPs, the rest of the BJP today closed ranks in support of Advani.

The BJP brass today, on their own, stated that it was reposing confidence in Advani's leadership in Parliament.

"He will remain Leader of the Opposition," said Jaswant Singh. Former BJP president Venkiah Naidu broached this topic at the official briefing of the meeting, betraying the fact that such reports had disturbed the top leadership of the party.

Sections of the party, however, remained steadfast in their belief that Advani's speech terming the act of accepting cash for questions by BJP MPs as "stupidity" was the wrong path to take.

Top sources disclosed that the party's political resolution, which would be circulated tomorrow at the national council meet will have a sizeable reference to the issue of corruption and the need to take a strong stand on it.

Sources also say that it is unlikely that Advani himself will be asked to mention this in his presidential address to the national council tomorrow.

"This is his farewell meeting as president and we want him to leave with some grace," said a senior leader. Jaswant Singh and BJP general secretaries Sushma Swaraj, Pramod Mahajan and Rajnath Singh reiterated that what Advani stated was consistent with the party's stand.

"An act of criminality is also a stupidity. Why should you distinguish between the two?" Jaswant Singh said. The struggle to make this credible, however, was quite visible.

The decision to take this kind of defensive action was reportedly taken when Vajpayee drew attention to some news reports speculating Advani's continuation as Leader of Opposition when the national executive convened this morning.

He also rebuked former party President Murli Manohar Joshi as some of these reports had been attributed to him. Joshi subsequently denied he had ever said anything of the sort, but the damage had been done.

BJP meets till date have also been dogged by issues which have nothing to do with the job at hand. Joshi's resignation and confessions on corruption were probably not what Mahajan had in mind for the meeting that marked 25 years of the BJP's existence.