DHAKA: When India’s former deputy prime minister LK Advani reached his office in Parliament during the lunch-break on Thursday, he was confronted with a humiliating situation.

The plaque with his name at the door of the room allotted to him in the 15th Lok Sabha - which said that he is acting chairman of the National Democratic Alliance or the NDA - had been removed.

The 86-year-old leader was forced to sit in the BJP’s parliamentary party office during the recess, in a room earmarked for the party’s deputy leader. 

Gopinath Munde, who was killed in an accident on Tuesday, held the post of deputy leader in the previous Lok Sabha, while his counterpart in the Rajya Sabha was Ravi Shankar Prasad, who is now a Cabinet Minister in the Narendra Modi government.

The room that Advani sat in for the last five years is the NDA chairman’s room. Former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who has been ill and out of politics for many years now, continues to remain NDA chairman.

Advani was designated acting chairman of the alliance in 2004, after the alliance conceded power to the UPA.

Advani’s name-plate, said sources, was removed, a move which is being viewed as a sure-fire signal that he will no longer hold the post of acting chairman of the NDA.

The BJP leader had to shift to the room earmarked for Vajpayee in 2009 after his party elevated Sushma Swaraj to the post of Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

Advani had also held that post since 2004, reports NDTV.

BDST: 0728 HRS, JUNE 06, 2014