Are Advani, Achuthanandan riding the same boat?

Thiruvananthapuram, April 6 , 2015: Despite belonging to opposing ideologies, BJP patriarch L.K. Advani and V.S. Achuthanandan of the CPI-M seem to be riding in the same boat now. Both the Communist Party of India-Marxist veteran, now 91, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) stalwart, aged 87, are founding members of their parties. Achuthanandan was among the 32 leaders who walked out of a Communist Party of India meet to form the CPI-M in 1964. Advani along with former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee founded the present-day BJP in 1980 -- after having been together in its earlier avatar, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Last month, Achuthanandan had a torrid time in the CPI-M's state party conference. He stormed out as speaker after speaker denounced him for "anti-party activities". Despite passionate pleas from CPI-M leaders, the veteran leader refused to return, only to complicate and make matters worse for him. Advani, a three-time BJP president, created no such drama at the two-day national executive of the party that ended in Bengaluru on Saturday. But by not speaking even a word, he set many tongues wagging. It was the first national executive where Advani did not deliver any address. In 2013, Advani did not attend the national executive in Goa after Narendra Modi, then the Gujarat chief minister, was named the chief of the party's election campaign committee for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.