Margdarshak Mandal.

All the three founding dignitaries of BJP  Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L K Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi are now out from the top decision making bodies of the party. Atal is out because of his illness but Advani and Joshi, who were permanent fixtures on the party top panels, have been kicked out and accommodated in a newly created body called 'Margdarshak Mandal'. The nomenclature of this body is supercilious, but decision must be taken by Modi and his coterie.

It is damaging for the party to ignore Advani's contribution to the party in the 1990s and his ability to attract Hindu voters. Joshi was a prominent face of the Ayodhya movement and was known for his proximity to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the party’s ideological parent.  By placing them in Margdarshak Mandal BJP has belittled them and put them below the level of leaders like Ananth Kumar, Thawarchand Gehlot, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and JP Nadda. This is not good for the party as any disrespect to most revered elder leaders would turn party’s “ good days” into bad days.   It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age.

K A Solaman