Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will not attend the three-day national executive of Bharatiya Janata Party beginning in Bhopal on Friday, party vice president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said.
It is for the first time that the 82-year-old BJP veteran will be skipping the meet.
The three-day meet is expected to discuss the ongoing row on the Ram Sethu project and the party's strategy for the Madhya Pradesh Assembly elections in 2008.
Though Vajpayee wanted to attend the meeting, doctors advised him against it because of his health problems following which senior leaders decided not to press him to attend, Naqvi said.
The party is holding its national executive in Bhopal after 11 years. Following its meet in 1996, the BJP came to power at the Centre and now the managers of the meeting are hopeful that the successful completion of this meet will pave way to recapture of power at Delhi.
