Poster war moves on to Rajkot

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The poster war continued in BJP on Sunday with more pro-Sanjay Joshi posters and others apparently targeting Narendra Modi appearing in various parts of Rajkot city.

The two-day state executive meeting of the BJP is going on in Rajkot.

Reflecting a deep divide within the BJP on Sanjay Joshi's exit from the party, the posters have appeared when the state is scheduled to go for Assembly elections in December.

This is the third time after Joshi's unceremonious exit from the BJP's National Executive that posters have appeared in Gujarat in support of Joshi and apparently targeting Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

The posters that have come up on Sunday near the venue of state BJP executive meeting venue at Atmiya college campus here said 'Sanjay Joshi aage badho, hum tumhare saath hai' (Sanjay Joshi go ahead, we are with you).

Few posters targeting Modi also appeared in the city on Sunday which read 'Follow Raj dharma, and party dharma'.

Though Modi's name was not mentioned on the posters, they were apparently targeted at the Chief Minister, as former Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee had advised him to follow 'Raj dharma' after the 2002 riots.

Earlier, posters supporting Joshi and targeting Modi appeared in Ahmedabad a couple of times.

Baffled over the source of the posters, the BJP started an inquiry, but has not able to find out culprit so far.

Joshi, who was first removed from the BJP national executive meet, had quit the party last on Friday. He had reportedly told that he had quit the party due to 'pressure being exerted on party leadership by Modi'.

Modi and Joshi, who started their career as comrades from Gujarat, later became staunch opponents. Joshi, who has worked in Gujarat for more than a decade, is quite popular with party workers due to his down-to-earth attitude.

Interestingly, party senior leader L.K. Advani's photos, which used to be there all over on posters of Gujarat BJP whenever it organised state executive meetings, were seen only on a few posters this time.

When asked why Advani was seen in few posters only, party spokesperson Vijay Rupani said, "This is party's state executive meeting, therefore there were posters of party national president Nitin Gadkari, BJP state unit president R.C. Faldu and Chief Minister Narendra Modi."