Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah have been told by the party's parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), to be more consultative in their approach towards organisational matters.
The RSS has asked the duo, especially Shah, to take into confidence senior party leaders such as L K Advani and ministers before deciding on crucial party issues. The perception that the two leaders have centralised power in their hands ever since the party's victory in the 2014 general elections has led to dissenting voices being raised by leaders such as Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie.
A recent meeting of the RSS meeting in Kanpur inferred that senior ministers of the Modi government, who also happen to party stalwarts, are kept out of the loop while taking decisions relating to the party's affairs, prompting the organisation to firm up an action plan, reports the Deccan Chronicle.
As part of the exercise, RSS joint general secretary Krishna Gopal and Shah have met with Sushma Swaraj, external affairs minister; Rajnath Singh, home minister; Venkaiah Naidu, urban development minister, and senior party leader L K Advani.
The RSS also fears that keeping Advani sidelined in organisational matters could prove costly in the upcoming Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections due next March, as he has the potential to "embarass" the party.
In June 2013, a day after Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, was chosen as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Advani sprung a surprise by resigning from all party posts, but later relented on being pacified by other party leaders.
"For some time I have been finding it difficult to reconcile either with the current functioning of the party, or the direction in which it is going...I have decided, therefore, to resign from the three main fora of the party, namely, the National Executive, the Parliamentary Board, and the Election Committee," he wrote in his letter addressed to the then party president Rajnath Singh.
Advani is also famous for calling Modi a good "event manager".
