Ahmedabad, June 5 (ANI): Illustrated posters of Sanjay Joshi, the former national executive member of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), hailing him at many places across Gujarat and elsewhere in the country, including New Delhi, accentuated the internal rift within the party on Tuesday.
Hundreds of multi-coloured posters and hoardings eulogising Sanjay Joshi were spotted in Ahmedabad alone.
Speaking to media, Gujarat Congress President Arjunbhai Modhwadia said it was an internal matter of the BJP.
"This is the internal matter of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and I don't want to react on it but the Congress (India's ruling party) is based on the strength of the people and we would continue our work by banking on this same strength," said Modhwadia.
Joshi had to resign from party's national executive to enable his arch adversary, Gujarat state Chief Minister Narendra Modi, to participate in the national executive meeting of the party in Mumbai recently.
Modhwadia further accused Modi of intolerance towards his detractors, be they from his own BJP or other parties and cited instances of Modi silencing his critics.
He wished that the BJP took note of such trends.
"The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has to think over it as Narendra Modi, who had distraught Haren Pandya (former Home Minister of Gujarat), Keshubhai Patel (former state chief), Dr. A K Patel (former junior minister for chemicals and fertilisers), Kashiram Rana, Suresh Mehta (former state chief of Gujarat) and now Sanjay Joshi and other workers of the party. It is to be seen to what extent, the party members of BJP will give liberty to Narendra Modi for getting funds for the state. This has to be decided by Bharatiya Janata Party. We don't have to deal with that," said Modhwadia.
The move was being viewed as an attempt by BJP to make peace with Modi, who did not attend the last meeting of the national executive held in New Delhi in December.
Meanwhile, leader and spokesperson of BJP, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi declined to comment by contending he had not seen the posters yet and even termed that it might be the work of anti-social elements.
"I have not seen the posters till now. It might be the work of some anti-social elements. I have not seen these as yet," said Naqvi.
Modi was reportedly upset over Joshi's induction in the BJP, and had not even campaigned for the party in the Uttar Pradesh assembly polls.
According to political experts, with BJP leader Sanjay Joshi resigning from the party's national executive, Modi's perceived rift with the central BJP leadership might have ended.
Recently, prior to the Mumbai meeting, Modi had put the condition of attending the national executive meet only if Joshi resigned from being a member of the national executive.
The meet was important, as it was the first main congregation of the BJP's top brass ahead of the assembly elections in Gujarat and the northern Himachal Pradesh, the two BJP-ruled states, scheduled by the year-end.
Although enjoying a high-profile but divisive, Narendra Modi stands apart in a country that doesn't always make it easy for industrialists as analysts cite the status of Gujarat state under his reign.
Modi, a member of the BJP, has leveraged the economic success of his state to become a national leader and potential Prime Ministerial candidate despite accusations of complicity during communal riots in 2002.owever, over the past one year, Modi embarked on series of three-day fasts to promote 'harmony', which was seen as a way of helping revamp the image of a leader accused by critics of complicity in religious riots that killed at least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims in 2002. (ANI)
