Modi,BSY skip BJP meet

Party president Nitin Gadkari had talked to Modi urging him to attend the meeting. Party circles suggested that Modi was also unhappy with Gadkari for having brought in his detractor Sanjay Joshi into the party-fold.

Besides Modi,two former chief ministers B S Yeddyurappa and Ramesh Pokhriyal also skipped the party meet. Yeddyurappa is sulking for being forced to step down as Karnataka chief minister and Pokhriyal for being replaced by B C Khanduri in Uttarakhand.

Conceding that acts of defiance by regional satraps is becoming a problem that the BJP will have to address sooner than later,a senior party leader felt that such a situation began developing in the last few years after party patriarch Atal Bihari Vajpayees retirement and the BJP drubbing in the polls when Advani was projected as the PM candidate.

Until then,the writ of the two leaders was absolute and none of the chief ministers dared to question the diktat of the central leadership, he said.

He added that besides Modi,even Chhattisgarh CM Raman Singh and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan have slowly been emerging as satraps in their own right.