New Delhi:
After the BJP announced yesterday that controversial Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi will head the party's election committee, Congress leader Digvijaya Singh said his heart goes out to Lal Krishna Advani.
The AICC general secretary also called the BJP "ungrateful".
"My heart goes out to Advani ji. He brought BJP from 2 to 182 in Lok Sabha. But then the ungrateful BJP is a party with differences," tweeted Mr Singh. Mr Advani stayed away from the executive meet for the first time in his entire political career. The 85-year-old leader had cited ill-health for skipping the national executive in Goa.
Asked whether Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi could be projected as a BJP's prime ministerial candidate after his anointment as chief of party's election campaign committee, Mr Singh said, "It was for BJP to decide."
"My heartiest congratulations to Modi," Mr Singh said when asked about Mr Modi's appointment.
Taking potshots at the internal difference within BJP, Union Minister and Congress leader Rajiv Shukla wondered when BJP cannot keep its ten leaders together, how will they keep ministers to function together in a government.
Congress spokesperson Shakeel Ahmed, meanwhile, said the BJP veteran was "reaping what he had sown."
"Advani is getting a taste of his pills. It was he who had started communal politics in India after 1985-86. Now Modi has projected himself as a more communal person than Advani, and this is the simple reason that the senior most BJP leader has now been sidelined," he said.