Advani resigns from BJP posts

Senior BJP leader L K Advani resigned from all party posts on Monday, a day after Narendra Modi was chosen to head the party's campaign in elections due next year.

Advani was among several senior BJP leaders who stayed away from the meeting in Goa at which Modi was appointed as standard-bearer for the elections, a position that could make him the party's candidate for prime minister.

In a letter to party chief Rajnath Singh quoted by various media outlets, Advani said he is resigning from the BJP's national executive, the parliamentary board and election committee.

"For some time I have been finding it difficult to reconcile either with the current functioning of the party, or the direction in which it is going," the 85-year-old party veteran said.

"Most leaders of ours are now concerned just with their personal agendas," he added.

Advani's resignation has not been accepted by the party.

"I have not accepted Shri Advani ji's resignation," party chief Rajnath Singh said on Twitter.

There was no immediate comment from Modi.

Despite the endorsement of his party on Sunday, Modi's ambition of becoming prime minister will be hard to realise.

This is partly because he is such a polarising figure. Modi is popular among voters who are tired of what they consider to be incompetent and corrupt governments and see him as a no-nonsense administrator who can deliver growth and development, but he is viewed with deep suspicion by others, particularly the large Muslim minority.

Many within the BJP, including party veterans whose absence from the Goa meeting became a media sensation, fear that he is too divisive to lead the party back to power after nearly a decade in opposition.