NEW DELHI: Is Sudheendra Kulkarni, political aide and speechwriter to L K Advani, the fall guy in the current controversy kicked off by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader's remarks in Pakistan?
Some senior party functionaries are out to blame the present flap on the man, a former card-holding Communist, who had come to wield enormous clout in the last few years in the BJP, thanks to his proximity to former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and now Advani - who resigned as party president Tuesday.
Kulkarni, a former journalist who holds an engineering degree from Mumbai's Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), was surprisingly the only BJP functionary accompanying Advani on his week-long visit to Pakistan, other than his family and long-time private secretary Deepak Chopra.
During the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government's rule, Kulkarni was an officer on special duty (OSD) in the Prime Minister's Office and a key planner in the India Shining campaign. Besides, he coordinated the task force on information technology and was part of the drafting committee of the BJP's manifesto and the national ag!
enda on
governance.
When the UPA government took office in May last year, Kulkarni gradually gravitated to party boss Advani, much to the displeasure of some BJP stalwarts, somewhat suspicious of his Communist background.
"He wrote up all of Advani's speeches and constantly provided him inputs on the various issues that were discussed in the Pakistan visit. Though unobtrusive, he seemed to have a say on party matters that was disproportionate to his ranking in the party hierarchy," admitted a party leader, a day after Advani resigned as BJP president.
Soon after Advani's visit to Mohammed Ali Jinnah's mausoleum in Karachi, Kulkarni rang up BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar, as he had done regularly, to publicise the speech on the Pakistan founder. Finding the content of Advani's statement "controversial", Javadekar reportedly told Kulkarni that he would need to consult other BJP leaders.
Senior BJP leader Sushma Swaraj then personally talked to Kulk!
arni - as
Advani was not available - saying the statement on Jinnah describing him as secular was "contentious".
