Advani hints he's still in PM race

BJP patriarch LK Advani on Monday avoided ruling out his candidature for the prime minister’s post in the run-up to the next Lok Sabha elections due in 2014. Vikas Pathak reports.

BJP patriarch LK Advani on Monday avoided ruling out his candidature for the prime minister’s post in the run-up to the next Lok Sabha elections due in 2014.

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Asked whether he was still in the race, Advani said, “Who will be the prime ministerial candidate, the party will decide when the polls come. It is still more than two years away. However, the government is functioning in a manner that it seems it can fall any time.”

After intense speculation that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh wanted him to bow out of the race for the top post, Advani, 83, has not done so unequivocally.

He gave a clear impression that his anti-corruption yatra, being launched from Bihar on Tuesday, was meant to take the party closer to the people. He said this task was currently being carried out by civil society groups.

Without naming Anna Hazare, he underlined that Jaya Prakash Narayan took political parties along during his movement in the 1970s, unlike present-day civil society groups.

“The first change in free India was because of JP. But he understood the importance of political parties and mobilised them. He did not ignore them and never said political parties should not come here.”

Hazare has refrained from sharing the dais with political parties.

Advani also said Parliament was supreme, when asked about Arvind Kejriwal’s statement that Hazare was above Parliament, but added that he was not aware in what context Kejriwal said this.