Ahmedabad/Nagpur: For Sanjay Joshi, the veteran BJP and RSS back room boy, the wheel has turned full circle as his once close friend and staunch ally Narendra Modi today turned his bête noire.  BJP accepts Joshi's resignation

Twenty two years after he crossed over from the RSS to the Gujarat unit of BJP and marked his arrival with great fanfare by ousting the Congress from power within five years, Joshi on Friday quit the BJP in almost matching silence. No tributes were paid by any of BJP brass and it was left to the spokesman Prakash Javdekar to confirm – in a matter of fact manner – that Joshi had indeed gone.

Under pressure from Narendra Modi, who considered him a rival in Gujarat, Joshi’s eventual ouster from the party came just two weeks after he had to resign from BJP executive late last month. It is also understood that RSS, Joshi’s former organization, is all set to accept him back in the fold.

According to Prakash Javdekar, the BJP spokesman in Delhi, Joshi in a letter requested the party president Nitin Gadkari to be relieved from the BJP which was accepted. It is understood that Gadkari was under tremendous pressure from Narendra Modi to oust Joshi from the party. After his resignation from the executive, it was only a matter of time that he quit the party too. Officially however the party maintains that Joshi was in-charge of Uttar Pradesh and has to take responsibility of the massive defeat in the assembly polls.

Joshi was made in-charge of Uttar Pradesh to handle the assembly elections. “Sending him out of the party was always on the cards. UP assembly polls disaster is now the handle which will be used against Joshi to ask him to leave. In any case, BJP gave Joshi a great chance to prove his organizational capabilities but he failed,” said a BJP source in Ahmedabad. The BJP functionary added that Gadkari had conveyed to Joshi last week itself that his days in the party were over.

“Gadkari had told him very clearly that he would have to go. There is no second thought on that front. It is upto Joshi now to decide his future course and follow the orders,” the BJP source close to Modi added. Joshi was sent to Gujarat from Nagpur by RSS in 1989 and with Modi, they formed a formidable team that eventually defeated Congress in the 1995 assembly elections. Keshubhai Patel became the Chief Minister. In 2000, Modi replaced Keshubhai as the Chief Minister and since than has always seen Joshi as a rival.

After Javdekar’s confirmation, BJP tried to cool the situation by informally telling media that Joshi remained in the party and only the UP charge had been taken away. “He will continue to be in the party and work for us,” said that source.

On the other hand, RSS is clear that Joshi is their man and he would be given new responsibility in the organization. Senior RSS members in Nagpur told ABP News that the organization was very unhappy with Modi and the way he was forcing his opinion on the BJP. “Joshi is welcome back in RSS. He was always an RSS man,” said a senior RSS pracharak.
Joshi was thrown out of RSS in 2006 after a CD surfaced which showed Joshi with a woman in private. It is believed that some party insiders were behind making the CD public. Joshi is in Delhi and has refused to talk to media so far.
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Read: Why Joshi and Modi were at loggerheads?