Date 12th November…
Year 1995…
Place: Mumbai’s Mahalaxmi Race Course…
The occasion was the three-day general convention of the Bharatiya Janata Party. From BJP President LK Advani to Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pramod Mahajan, all the senior leaders of the party were on the stage. There was a slight coolness in the atmosphere. Thousands of party workers had gathered. General elections were going to be held in the country next year. But no one had any idea that Advani had come to this conference with a special intention. The intention was such that no one except him was even aware of it. Vajpayee had just finished his address when Advani got up and addressed the workers and announced that we will fight the next elections under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He will be the prime ministerial candidate from the party. On hearing this, there was silence in the entire meeting.
While presenting his point, Advani said that for many years, not only the party workers but also the common people have been raising the same slogan that next turn will be Atal Bihari. I am confident that BJP will form the next government under the leadership of Atal ji. As soon as Advani finished his speech, he started sitting on the chair. Vajpayee immediately got up and holding the mike said that we will form the government and will definitely form it but under the leadership of Advani ji.
Neither Vajpayee nor Advani were ready to accept. Both kept calling each other the Prime Ministerial candidate. For the next few minutes, this bittersweet dispute between the two, from the leaders present on the stage to thousands of workers, were witnesses. During this period the conversation between Advani and Vajpayee was something like this…
Advani- We will contest the next elections under the leadership of Atal ji.
Vajpayee- We will form the government and Advani ji will be our Prime Minister.
Advani- The announcement has been made.
Vajpayee- So I also announce that the Prime Minister…
Advani- Must be Atal ji…
Vajpayee – What did you announce? At least he would have talked to me.
Advani – Do you believe? If we had asked you…
Advani had already decided. He had selected Vajpayee as the Prime Ministerial candidate of BJP for the elections to be held next year. But both the party and the workers were surprised by this decision. The surprising thing was that the hotel room in which Advani was staying in Mumbai. The same evening, Govindacharya, who was the general secretary of BJP at that time, came to meet him there. The first question he asked as soon as he reached the room was how can you make such an announcement? On this Advani said that I did what I felt was right.
Complete details of this incident and conversation have been given by senior journalist Neerja Chaudhary in her book ‘How Prime Minister Decides’. She tells that when I asked Advani about this whole matter, he told me that ‘If I had taken the opinion of others on this, I would never have been able to reach this decision.’
Making Vajpayee the PM candidate is a gamble or something else!
The announcement made by Advani in Mumbai. Everyone inside and outside the party was surprised by this. This was the period when Advani was a bigger face than Vajpayee. He became a political star with his Rath Yatra in 1990. Many suspected that Advani’s decision to declare Vajpayee as his prime ministerial candidate was part of a deliberate strategy. He declared Vajpayee as the Prime Ministerial candidate because he had received the news that PV Narasimha Rao was preparing to file the charge sheet in the Hawala case as soon as possible. Many big leaders including Advani were accused in the Hawala case.
Neerja Choudhary writes in her book that perhaps Advani had realized that if he announced his name for the post of Prime Minister, he might have to withdraw from the candidature due to being made an accused in the Hawala case. Which would be a huge embarrassment. Was this a coincidence or something else… Just two months after the announcement of Vajpayee’s name as the Prime Ministerial candidate, in January 1996, a charge sheet was filed in the Hawala case, in which Advani was named an accused. Enraged by this, Advani immediately resigned from the membership of Parliament. He bluntly said that he would not step into the Parliament until he was proven clean in this matter. In such a situation, despite the party’s efforts, he did not contest the 1996 elections. It was because of his stubbornness that he returned to Parliament in 1998 only after being proved innocent in this case.
Advani’s needle of doubt…
Neerja Chaudhary writes that Advani was fully confident that Narasimha Rao hastened to file the charge sheet in the Hawala case so that the way for Vajpayee could be cleared for the candidature for the post of Prime Minister. Bhuvanesh Chaturvedi, a minister in the Rao cabinet, told me that Advani felt that Narasimha Rao helped Vajpayee under the guise of the Hawala case. This case was progressing under the supervision of the Supreme Court but Narasimha Rao knew that this would help Vajpayee.
(PV Narasimha Rao and Atal Bihari Vajpayee)
Advani had asked Chaturvedi in a program whether he had prosecuted him on someone’s advice? Surely his reference was towards Vajpayee. But Advani did not take anyone’s name directly. Chaturvedi had told Advani that he did not do anything on anyone’s advice. That was the order of the Supreme Court. Later Advani also asked the same question to PV Narasimha Rao. Rao had also denied this.
It remains a big question even today that if the investigation of Hawala case does not move forward rapidly. So would Advani have announced Vajpayee’s name as the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate for the 1996 Lok Sabha elections?
Credit: Photos: India Today Archieve
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