Is Advani a dictator?
Preeti sanghvi
Sep. 8, 2005

Vajpayee came out strongly against Advani in support of Kurana. BJP is shaking with internal turmoil and Advani is the current pillar stone whom no one like. RSS, VHP and now moderates like Vajpayee and Joshi all are against him!

Is he really a dictator? The political think tanks belive he is not a dictator but definitely is a shrewd man who likes to clean the BJP of all his opponents.

According to media reports, Buoyed by words of support from former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Madan Lal Khurana on Thursday used a meeting of his supporters to launch a bitter attack on BJP president L.K. Advani whom he accused of harboring a ‘dictatorial attitude’.

A day after BJP expelled him for six years on disciplinary grounds, Khurana kept his cards close to his chest on what he proposed to do saying he would announce his next step on Monday or Tuesday.

Three BJP MLAs surfaced at the meeting to back him.

Drawing strength from Vajpayee’s statement on Thursday that his ouster from BJP was ‘unfortunate’, Khurana said he would discuss with ‘family, friends and BJP Central leaders’ before arriving at a decision.

This would be announced between September 16 and 18, when the BJP National Executive meets in Chennai, said the former Delhi Chief Minister who had met Vajpayee and former BJP president Jana Krishnamurthy on Wednesday.

In an emotionally-charged speech to hundreds of his supporters, including three BJP MLAs from Delhi, at his residence, Khurana said, “he once considered Advani his ‘ideal’, but the BJP president had ‘become surrounded by people giving wrong advice from air-conditioned rooms that I should be pushed to the back”.

Khurana claimed that after he was served a show-cause notice by BJP on August 22, he sought time thrice to meet Advani but this was not granted.

“Does this not reflect a dictatorial attitude, arrogance?” he asked.

Khurana claimed Vajpayee told him he had no knowledge that a show cause notice was being served on him.

“I had also tried to make Advani agree to sit together with me to sort out problems,” he said. But this did not materialise.

The meeting on Thursday, organised by Khurana’s supporters, saw a number of local leaders of BJP, Akali Dal, Delhi Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee and Muslim organisations declaring their support for the man once known as the ‘Lion of Delhi’.

Differences within the Delhi BJP also became apparent as three of the 20 BJP MLAs, Harsharan Singh Balli, Dayanand Chandela and Subhash Sachdeva, were present in it.

Recalling that he was associated with the Sangh Parivar ever since his student days, Khurana lamented that the “party had deteriorated from being like a family to a private limited company in which the bosses hand down orders to subordinates”.

Khurana referred to 1996 when he had resigned as Chief Minister after his name cropped up in the hawala scam.

“I was promised that I would be reinstated when the charges against me were cleared. But when the party did not do so initially, I was very hurt. I remember that Vajpayee and Advani had themselves come to my house to mollify me. Today, I am not even given time to put across my point of view. Such is the change in this party,” he said.

About BJP’s claim that he had not replied to the showcause notice which led to his expulsion, Khurana said he had written back asking for more time “as I was in mental turmoil. But the party never got back to me”.

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