ISAS Insights

Veteran political leader L K Advani’s resignation last week from even the primary membership of the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India and the withdrawal of that resignation a couple of days later made national news. This came close on the heels of the appointment of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi as Chairman of the BJP’s Election Campaign Committee. The ruling Congress party has refrained from commenting about these developments, stating that these are internal party matters of the BJP. Internally, Congress should be quite pleased at the dissension in the ranks of the BJP and at the announcement by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar that his party would not like to align with the BJP in the forthcoming general election, if they projected Narendra Modi as the leader. Nitish Kumar has made a call for a third front, free of BJP and the Congress, which has had only lukewarm support so far.