How Advani and Vajpayee Shaped Modi’s Early Political Career

Before Modi led the BJP, two other men did: L.K. Advani and Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the party’s dominant leadership duo through the 1990s and into the 2000s. Their relationship with Modi shaped the earlier stages of his career in ways that are well documented, including one notably tense episode. This article covers that relationship specifically.

Two Different Roles

Vajpayee and Advani led the BJP together for decades, with Vajpayee generally seen as the party’s more moderate, broadly popular public face, and Advani as its more ideologically assertive organisational strategist, the leader of the 1990 Ram Rath Yatra covered in our separate article on that campaign, in which Modi served as the Gujarat-leg organiser. That yatra is itself one of the clearest early points of direct working contact between Modi and Advani, with Modi operating in a subordinate organisational role to Advani’s national leadership.

Advani’s Role in Modi’s Elevation

Advani is widely credited as a significant supporter of Modi’s elevation to Gujarat Chief Minister in 2001, backing his selection when the party’s national leadership was choosing a replacement for Keshubhai Patel. Their working relationship through the 1990s, built through Modi’s various organisational roles under the party’s national leadership, gave Advani direct familiarity with Modi’s administrative capabilities well before 2001.

The 2002 Tension With Vajpayee

The relationship between Modi and Vajpayee includes one specific, widely reported moment of tension. Following the 2002 Gujarat riots, Vajpayee, then Prime Minister, is reported to have publicly reminded Modi of his “raj dharma,” a phrase referring to a ruler’s fundamental duty to protect all citizens impartially, a comment widely interpreted at the time as implicit criticism of Modi’s handling of the violence. Some subsequent reporting has described Vajpayee as having seriously considered replacing Modi as Chief Minister at a party national executive meeting held in Goa in April 2002, though accounts differ on exactly how far that consideration went. What most accounts agree on is that Advani was a key figure in the party ultimately deciding to retain Modi in his post at that meeting, effectively siding with him at a moment when his position was genuinely at risk.

From Backing to Distance

The relationship’s trajectory shifted substantially in the years that followed. Advani, once a key backer, later found himself increasingly sidelined within the party as Modi and his close ally Amit Shah consolidated national leadership after 2014, a shift widely covered in Indian political journalism as the passing of leadership from one BJP generation to the next. Advani did not hold a prominent day-to-day role in the party’s national leadership during Modi’s years as Prime Minister, though he has continued to be treated with public respect and deference by Modi, including a notable gesture in 2024 when Modi personally conferred India’s highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna, on Advani.

Why This History Matters

Understanding this relationship adds useful context to Modi’s political career in two ways. It shows that his rise wasn’t a solo trajectory but one shaped and, at a genuinely precarious moment in 2002, protected by senior leaders operating within the party’s existing structure. It also illustrates a broader, fairly common pattern in long-running political parties, where the leaders who enable a rising figure’s early opportunities are not always the same leaders who remain closest to that figure once they reach the top.

Vajpayee’s Broader Legacy in Modi’s Government

Despite the 2002 tension, Vajpayee’s broader legacy has continued to be publicly honoured during Modi’s premiership rather than downplayed. Modi’s government has marked Vajpayee’s birth anniversary, December 25, as “Good Governance Day” since 2014, and has continued to credit several of Vajpayee’s own policy initiatives, including highway expansion programmes and early telecom liberalisation, as foundational to later infrastructure work carried out under Modi’s own governments. This suggests the 2002 tension, however real at the time, did not translate into a lasting erasure of Vajpayee’s standing within the party’s official memory under Modi’s leadership.

The Generational Handover, in Context

The shift in influence from the Advani-Vajpayee generation to Modi and Amit Shah is often cited by political historians as a fairly typical, if unusually visible, example of generational transition within a long-running political party, comparable in structure, if not in specific details, to leadership transitions that have occurred within India’s Congress party and within other major political organisations globally, where founding or senior-generation leaders gradually cede practical control to a newer leadership cohort even while retaining formal seniority and public respect.

Bottom Line

Advani and Vajpayee were the two dominant BJP figures during the years Modi’s career was built, with Advani playing a more direct supporting role in his rise, including at the genuinely uncertain moment following the 2002 riots, while Vajpayee’s relationship with Modi included at least one significant point of public tension. Both relationships evolved substantially as Modi’s own standing within the party grew.

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Abhyudaya Verma