Ahmedabad, June 8: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) poster controversy seems to have become bigger in Gujarat. Posters indirectly targetting Chief Minister Narendra Modi, while promoting his bete noire Sanjay Joshi have been put up in Ahmedabad and other parts of the state.
This is the second poster of its kind to be put up, after BJP president Nitin Gadkari sacked Joshi from the party's national executive under pressure from Modi. This one has the BJP's logo and reads 'Perform Rajdharma, Prajadharma and partydharma'.
Meanwhile, another set of banners praising Sanjay Joshi have also come up in Rajkot, where a meeting of the BJP state executive will take place over the weekend.
Pamphlets have also been distributed in Ghoghamba in Panchmahal district, where a picture of Modi has been morphed by replacing his face with that of Keshubhai Patel, who is holding a rally there on Sunday.
The posters are appearing at a time when Modi is facing flak within the party. BJP's Kamal Sandesh, in its editorial had criticised Modi without naming him. The RSS's mouthpieces Panchajanya and Organiser though had praised the Chief Minister.
Last week, some posters were on display outside the BJP office in Delhi and Ahmedabad in support of Sanjay Joshi against whom Modi has openly expressed displeasure.
The posters quoted a poem by senior BJP leader and former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and interestingly, have the BJP symbol. But it isn't clear yet as to who put up the posters.
When contacted, Sanjay Joshi had said. "I have not asked anyone to put these posters. I do not know who is behind all this."
Joshi was asked to resign from the BJP national executive after Modi demanded it, in exchange of his presence at the BJP meet in Mumbai.
A vociferous Modi detractor, Joshi's resignation was the price the Gujarat Chief Minister extracted from BJP President Nitin Gadkari to attend the meet in Mumbai.
Modi had been upset with party president Nitin Gadkari after he had reinstated Sanjay Joshi in the party and made him the in-charge of the Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections. Joshi had to quit his post in 2005 after his purported sex CD hit headlines.
Modi had not turned up to campaign in Uttar Pradesh, even as Gadkari was keen that he did. He even skipped the last party conclave in Delhi held in December last year. Since then the Gujarat Chief Minister and Gadkari were not in the best of terms.
However, the equation seemed to improve after Joshi resigned from the BJP national executive.
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