Modi Promotion Within BJP Exposes Party Rift Ahead of India Poll

Attempts by India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party to show a united front over its decision to pick Narendra Modi as head of the group’s election campaign were derailed as a senior leader quit his posts in protest.

Modi, 62 and the chief minister of the western state of Gujarat, was appointed the BJP’s election panel chief “keeping in mind the challenge of the 2014 elections and to achieve victory in the polls,” party President Rajnath Singh said yesterday at the end of a national executive meeting in Goa. Lal Krishna Advani, 85, who cited ill health as he failed to attend the conclave, today resigned from three key party positions.