LK Advani celebrated birthday by watching ‘Chakravyuh'

NEW DELHI: After BJP veteran LK Advani’s joint statement with three other party seniors on Diwali eve appeared to trigger a ‘Kurukshetra’ in BJP, following its defeat in Bihar on November 8 (his birthday), the leader it seems is interested only in a particular episode — Chakravyuh — of the epic war. BJP’s ‘rath yatri’ is learnt to have satisfied himself with a play, ‘Chakravyuh,’ based on Abhimanyu, the tragic character in Mahabharat, enacted by Nitish Bhardwaj who played Lord Krishna in Ramanand Sagar’s Mahabharat serial.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended a ‘Diwali Milan’ organised by the party last Saturday, about 275 of Advani’s well-wishers were treated with the play at the back lawns of Advani’s residence at 30 Prithviraj Road the same evening, to celebrate his wife Kamala Advani’s birthday (November 27), along with his. President Pranab Mukherjee and vice-president Hamid Ansari drove down to the veteran’s residence, before the play began to greet them during the birthday celebrations.

Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Harsh Vardhan and Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh also came down to his residence for the same purpose. Modi and BJP president Amit Shah could not make it but both leaders had called on the party veteran on November 8 to greet him on his birthday, when most TV channels prematurely flashed BJP’s victory in the Bihar assembly elections.

Sources close to Advani played down the celebrations. They said his daughter Pratibha Advani has made it a practice to organise joint celebrations of her parents’ birthdays that fall 19 days apart in November. Pratibha is believed to have initially planned the celebration on November 22.

However, she had to postpone it for November 28 after the demise of VHP leader Ashok Singhal in the intervening period. Later, Pratibha is believed to have got a chance to invite President Pranab Mukherjee and vice-president Hamid Ansari when she visited Rashtrapati Bhavan on Guru Nanak Jayanti.