A CONSTITUENCY FOR THE OLD GUARD

The old guard of BJP is finding it difficult to reconcile to the possibility of life outside the Lok Sabha. First, no one in the party had the courage to recommend to L.K. Advani, 86, that he be nominated to the Rajya Sabha—as a result the party is faced with the task of finding a seat for him, since Gandhinagar may be one of two constituencies reserved for BJP prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi. Then someone suggested to Murli Manohar Joshi, 80, that Modi would contest from Varanasi, upon which he is said to have asked famously: Accha, from which party? Now comes news that Jaswant Singh, 76, wants to contest from his home constituency Barmer in Jaisalmer. Err, what happened to the RSS diktat that no one over 75 could contest the 2014 elections?