Let bygones be bygones — Advani to Rao

It is learnt that Advani broached the subject of the JMM judgement with Rao, in which the court had convicted Rao and Buta Singh of a conspiracy to buy out MPs to save the Congress government in 1993. Advani is believed to have told Rao that according to some of his cabinet colleagues, people were spreading word that he (Advani) had influenced the JMM case. This, he told Rao, was simply not true. He neither knew the judge nor would he do such a thing, he reportedly said.

Rao reportedly responded by telling Advani that he harboured no such feeling, and that no matter what the public perception, the issue did not rankle him, and that Advani should not take to heart what he had heard.

There was a time in 1991-92 when Advani had publicly complimented Rao for being one of the good Prime Ministers that the country had thrown up. They became estranged on the issue of the demolition of the Babri Masjid, when both felt betrayed by each other. Till then, Advani and Atal Behari Vajpayee used to meet Rao regularly.

Hawala, in which Advani and a large number of Congressmen were charged of bringing in money through illegal channels, but were later acquitted by the courts, proved to be the last nail in the coffin as far as Rao-Advani relations went.

One of the reasons for Rao’s success in running a full term despite starting off as a minority government was the cordial relations he had built with leaders of all parties and even with non-Congress chief ministers like Manohar Joshi, who invited him to prayers at his home.

It is said that Sonia Gandhi was one of those who told Narasimha Rao, when she went to call on him on the day of the JMM judgement, that she had heard that Advani had influenced the case.