BJP veteran LK Advani has once again stirred a hornets’ nest by taking on the RSS for remote-controlling the party and asked for an “introspection” to correct the ills that plague the party.

In a well articulated write-up posted on his blog this morning, he found fault with the way the party was being run. "The mood within the party these days is not upbeat. The results in Uttar Pradesh, the manner in which the party welcomed BSP Ministers who were removed by Mayawati on charges of corruption, the party’s handling of Jharkhand and Karnataka – all these events have undermined the party’s campaign against corruption”, he wrote.

Though he didn't name anyone, it was a direct dig at party president Nitin Gadkari and the RSS, which was instrumental in Gadkari's appointment. He said the party has not behaving like the true opposition. He wrote, “I had said at the core group meeting that if people are today angry with the UPA government, they are also disappointed with us. The situation, I said, calls for introspection.”

But he made sure that his message reached the right quarters by effusively praising Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley for their performance as parliamentarians in the same blog post.

Advani had earlier skipped a rally, held in Mumbai soon after the party's national executive meeting that endorsed a second term for Gadkari as the party president, to showcase unity among the senior leaders. The move was seen as an expression of his unhappiness over Gadkari's continuation.

Predictably, Advani’s latest post has set the cat among the pigeons which is evident from the fact that the senior BJP leaders are busy deciphering the meaning of every word that he has written in the blog post.

Advani is one of the few leaders left who connect the Jan Sangh legacy of an earlier era to the present day BJP. He has seen tough journeys in the last six decades and knows the pulse of the political affairs. That such a senior leader chose to give vent to his feelings through a blog is indicative of shrinking space for debates within the party forum like the national executive.