Incidentally, of all the persons, it is chief minister Nitish Kumar of Janata Dal (United), who is getting dragged into this tug-of-war within the BJP. Party leaders opposed to the stature of Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi are trying to use Nitish’s shoulder to fire their salvo against him.

The state BJP president, Dr C P Thakur, has already made it clear that there is no place for the Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi, in the state.

Nitish’s decision to flag off Advani’s Yatra Against Corruption from Sitab Diara is very symbolic. Advani abandoned his earlier plan to kick off his Yatra from Porbandar or Karamsad, the birthplace of Gandhiji and Sardar Patel respectively because both these places are situated in Gujarat.

Now that the RSS is more inclined towards Modi than Advani, it was essential for the latter to avoid any confrontation.

It is less an issue of hardliner versus softliner within the party. Be it Advani or Jaitley they are not softliner. In 1990s Advani was the hardline face in comparison to Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The tussle now is primarily over the prime ministerial candidate. So all those who resent Modi are finding Bihar as the best place to converge.

Nitish, who nurses his own ambition––in spite of the limited appeal of his party––does not want to miss this opportunity. For him Modi is a bigger challenge than octogenarian Advani, who many think, has already played his innings. Both Nitish and Modi are about a quarter century younger to Advani and may one day emerge as the next generation leader within the NDA.

Incidentally, the NDA convenor and the Janata Dal (United) national president, Sharad Yadav, is also in Bihar. These developments are pointer to the fact that something is cooking up in the state.

Nitish would certainly like to project Advani as a moderate face of the Hindutva in comparison to Modi. Whether he would succeed or not is quite a different issue.

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