Tuesday, March 17, 2009

BJP war within: Jaitley, Yeddyurappa skip meets

The war within the BJP between two of their top leaders, Arun Jaitley and Rajnath Singh, is intensifying.Jaitley on Tuesday did not attend a key BJP meeting to select candidates because of his fight with party president Rajnath Singh.The meeting is being attended by senior party leader L K Advani, Venkaiah Naidu, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi and party president Rajnath Singh.
However, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa has also skipped a party meet, allegedly over differences with Ananth Kumar.On Monday, Rajnath had snubbed Jaitley by meeting Sudhanshu Mittal to discuss election strategy. Yet, the party's response to the crisis is confused."Jaitely has raised some issues, which the party is trying to resolve. But we don't discuss intra-party issues in public," party leader M Venkaiah Naidu said.
But the BJP is worried that it's top GenNext leaders are fighting and Jaitley -- the party's top election manager -- is isolated. Even the RSS mediators are trying to defuse the situation.One solution could be that Advani steps in to resolve the issue.
But so far, he has denied to make any comment on the rift."There are no differences," he said when asked about the issue of Jaitley vs Rajnath.The party searches for solutions. In the end, Jaitley or Rajnath may win or there may be a truce, but the loser will be Jaitley who is making a bid for the top job
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