Vaastu did the trick in solving BJP's crisis

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Vaastu did the trick in solving BJP's crisis

Jun. 11, 2005

It was neither a modified draft nor a forceful intervention by

former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee that resolved the crisis

in the BJP triggered off by party president L K Advani's

resignation. It was good old Vaastu Shastra that did the trick, if

party insiders are to be believed. Frustrated over the series

of "unfortunate developments "in the party beginning with stormy

petrel Uma Bharati's open defiance of the party leadership in full

media glare, party managers were on the lookout for a panacea to the

ills plaguing the party when they hit upon the ancient science of

creating harmony between house and environment. Vaastu experts

scanned the sprawling 11, Ashoka Road headquarters of the party and

found the problem in its main hall where crucial meetings of the

party as also its daily briefings are held, sources said. They found

that at all party meetings, particularly the controversial ones, the

seating arrangements in the hall were such that senior leaders sat

facing the south while office bearers sat facing the north which

they felt was a "conflicting position". Hence, at Friday's crucial

meeting of the BJP parliamentary board, office bearers and Chief

Ministers of BJP-ruled states called to discuss Advani's

resignation, the senior leaders were made to sit facing east while

the office bearers were made to sit facing north. Party officials

said they were forced to make the change on Friday after the

deliberations of the Tuesday's meeting of the parliamentary board,

held with the old seating arrangement, failed to deliver the goods

with Advani sticking to his resignation. Interestingly, the changes

were not known to most of the leaders, including the protagonist L K

Advani. When the media asked party vice-president and headquarters

in charge Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi about the changes, he merely said it

was meant to provide more space to them though on the contrary, the

new arrangements only further reduced the space in the hall. To a

question why the party leaders were kept in the dark about the new

seating arrangements, a BJP official said, "we did not want to take

the risk. If the meeting had failed, we could have been shown the

door". However, with the episode ending on a happy note, the

officials are glad that they made the changes and intend to continue

with the new seating arrangements for their future meetings also.

Interestingly, party leaders were upbeat a few months back when a

well-known city-based astrologer had predicted the downfall of the

UPA government around September 26 last year. What followed shortly

was upheavals within the saffron party.

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