Feud at the top in the Bharatiya Janata Party took new dimensions with the party mouthpiece making a veiled attack on leaders including Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra
Modi and former Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, asking them to rise above issues of self and self-existence.
Interestingly, Modi, whose name was not taken in the editorial of Kamal Sandesh but could be the apparent target, met party patriarch Atal Bihari Vajpayee and another veteran L K Advani.
Advani had on Thursday made a thinly-veiled attack on party president Nitin Gadkari, lamenting that BJP's campaign on corruption could have been dented by certain actions taken by Gadkari. This was seen as Advani's expression of resentment over Gadkari and Modi coming together at last week's national executive.
"Atalji, Advaniji, Dr Joshiji have been shining in the horizon of Indian politics for so many years only because they have always considered organisation to be supreme. They kept themselves within the fold of BJP even though their stature is very high but they never tried to grow taller than the party," the curiously worded editorial by Prabhat Jha, editor of Kamal Sandesh, said.
"Rising above the petty issues of 'self' and 'other' and issues of 'self-existence' everyone should come together and unite for the existence of the party," was another line in the editorial.
Party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar sought to dismiss media interpretations of the editorial as "not fair" and "unjustified". He asked the media not to "create a story out of nothing".
In what is seen as a subtle criticism of leaders, the editorial at another place makes a point, "as one ascends the ladder, his understanding should also elevate. But the irony
is that it is always seen that on reaching the top, even after knowing that a day will come when he has to come down, he tries to belittle the ones below him".
Jha himself played down the editorial, maintaining that it is being interpreted differently by everybody.
"The organisation is supreme. If everybody works unitedly we will achieve our target. That is the message of the editorial... The feeling of the workers is that organisation is above all," Jha said.
