Advani skips party convention

UTTAN - Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani Sunday skipped the ongoing two-day party convention being held here due to ill health, a party official said.

Advani was scheduled to make a concluding speech Sunday afternoon but his trip was postponed at the last minute, the official told IANS.

In his place, opposition leader in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj was to make the concluding remarks on the charter of ‘National Convention on Good Governance’.

The convention has been a closed-door affair, conducted in the sylvan surroundings of Uttan, a village on the Arabian Sea coast, around 40 km north of Mumbai.

The morning session Sunday was addressed by senior party leaders M. Venkaiah Naidu and Ananth Kumar, among others.

A total 83 delegates were invited for what is billed as the “first of its kind convention involving so many state leaders on the vital issue of good governance”.

Besides party president Nitin Gadkari, who was present on the opening Saturday, the convention was attended by five chief ministers of BJP-ruled states. However, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Kumar could not make it as he lost his father a day before the event.

Two deputy chief ministers, including Sushilkumar Modi from Bihar and 73 ministers, besides the party chiefs of eight states also marked their attendance.

This is the first major convention of the BJP being held in Maharashtra after Gadkari, who hails from Nagpur, took over as party chief last year.