AHMEDABAD: Senior BJP leader L K Advani on Wednesday said, “I will be happy if Narendra Modi becomes Prime Minister,” indicating that hostilities with the Gujarat CM had been put to rest.
“Work done in Gujarat under Modi has been praised not only in the country but across the world,” Advani added.
The BJP patriarch and the party’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi were seen together at a civic body function here, days after a bitter episode when the former opposed the elevation of Modi.
Earlier in the day, both of them were present during the meeting of Somnath Temple Trust, along with trust president Keshubhai Patel.
Both the leaders came together to inaugurate gardens built by Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) along the Sabarmati river under the Riverfront Development Project.
The event assumes significance, as Advani, the 85-year-old MP from Gandhinagar constituency, was seen at a major public function along with Modi in Gujarat after 2011.
Though Advani and Modi had appeared on a public platform in Bhopal on September 25, along with a pantheon of BJP leaders for the first time after the anointment of the Gujarat chief minister as the party’s prime ministerial candidate, there the ties between the two leaders were far from being warm.
However, in contrast on Wednesday both of them appeared more relaxed when they came together for the AMC function.
Opposing the elevation of Modi, his one-time protege, as BJP’s election campaign committee chief, Advani had resigned from all party posts in June this year, though he later withdrew it.
He had also not attended the party’s parliamentary board meeting last month which decided to declare Modi as its prime ministerial candidate.
Keshubhai Patel, a former chief minister of Gujarat, had left BJP and formed his own Gujarat Parivartan Party.
They discussed in detail about improving the tourist facility at the famous Shiva Temple of Somnath, sources said.
