Omar Abdullah has spelt out what has irked many ever since LK Advani’s anti-Narendra Modi verbal spasms began coming out in the open.

Taking to the micro-blogging site Twitter, seemingly the Jammu and Kashmir chief minister’s best friend when he wants to communicate with people, Abdullah remarked on Tuesday morning: “L K Advani as the NDA’s mascot of secularism. Who would have imagined!!!!!!”

This comes a day after Advani suddenly seemed to have become a darling of several political parties, the ruling Congress being the first among equals if that were a race, after he resigned from three top posts in the party. () And that, of course, was a day after the BJP national executive meeting in Goa selected Narendra Modi to be the party’s election campaign committee chief for 2014. (Shorn of the officialese associated with the title, it means Modi’s salt-n-peppah bearded face would benignly look down on possible voters from the BJP’s posters whenever the next general elections are held.)

Did the parties fail to spot these qualities in the former deputy prime minister all these years?

Now, if there can be sections within the BJP that do not like Modi, it is but to be expected that you can multiply it four times and add some more to the figure to get the real figure of people itching to bitch at the “communal” Gujarat CM. So off they all went, in turn hitting upon qualities par excellence in Advani, till recently an untouchable and a hardliner for many non-BJP and opposed-to-BJP parties. While Sharad Yadav, the president of JD(U) which is a key BJP ally in the opposition NDA, was “saddened” by Advani’s resignation, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik, obviously concerned by the BJP veteran’s exit, opened a frontal attack on Modi.

"I don't think Narendra Modi presents a credible alternative to the problems the country is facing. Much of the development in Gujarat is hyped up. The state has always been prosperous and credit for that should not go to one person," Patnaik was quoted in the Indian Express (read it here).

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Getting over the words

The Congress, of course, had a field day, fielding its most loquacious leaders to field questions from the media. Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh said, "It is a sad end to a long and checkered political career. I was never fond of his politics but he has been treated shabbily."

Spelling out that his “heart goes out to Advani-ji”, fellow AICC general secretary Digivijay Singh said, “The person who steered the BJP from only two seats in 1984 to 182 seats... if such a person demanded more discussion and other things, including the forming of two committees, instead of one, what is the harm, and what is the hurry?”

The Twitter-savvy Omar Abdullah, whose National Conference was a constituent of the NDA between 1999 and 2003, gave the best comeback on the micro-blogging site yesterday, posting: “If his opinion didn't matter to you yesterday why is his resignation a crisis for you today?”