New Delhi, July 8 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said Wednesday that its leader L.K. Advani’s admonition of senior colleagues was aimed at curbing dissidence in the party still stunned by its Lok Sabha defeat.
BJP vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said Advani’s comments this week followed unending infighting ever since the party lost the battle for power in May.

“After the Lok Sabha elections, some leaders in the party have been giving random statements to the media,” Naqvi told IANS, explaining why Advani had gone public with what he said Monday and Tuesday.

“This portrays a wrong image of the party and spoils the reputation of some leaders. Therefore, to control this, Advani has come out with some suggestions,” Naqvi added.

Speaking at the birth anniversary of Bharatiya Jana Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mookerjee Monday, Advani complained that there were too many spokespersons in the BJP, seemingly eager to see their names in the media.

Even as the BJP reeled under the impact of the statement, Advani told newly elected MPs the next day that they should stay out of corporate wars and not ask questions in the house on behalf of lobbyists.

Advani, who was BJP’s prime ministerial candidate in the Lok Sabha polls, also advised them to check every document before putting their signatures.

Warning that these were critical times when individuals and political parties were looking for opportunities to “show each other down”, he asked MPs to thoroughly check the background of their private secretaries.

BJP second leaders have been locked in an ugly war, criticising one another publicly, ever since the party won only 116 seats in this general election — far below the 138 it got in 2004 and much below what it thought it could win this time.

Since then, some party leaders have privately blamed Advani’s leadership and the absence of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee for the poor showing.

Other second rung leaders have blamed one another, shocking members and supporters of the supposedly regimented BJP.

Some in the BJP feel that Advani’s latest comments seek to reiterate his authority over the country’s second largest political party.