NEW DELHI, Sept 18: India’s opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani announced on Sunday he would step down from the presidency of the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in December. Advani, a former deputy prime minister, made the announcement to party members at a convention in the southern city of Chennai, the Press Trust of India reported.

Party vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told reporters that Advani was not resigning under pressure and it was a “voluntary” decision.

Advani brought the party to national attention by campaigning to have a Hindu temple built on the site of a Babri Mosque.

Zealots demolished the mosque in 1992, triggering Hindu-Muslim riots across the country in which more than 2,000 people were killed.

The BJP won power in India in 1998 at the head of a coalition and ruled the country until May 2004, with Advani serving first as home minister and then adding the post of deputy prime minister.

Advani took over as BJP president after its disastrous defeat in national elections in May last year. But his term was marked by controversy and frequent and open challenges to his authority.

Matters came to a head when Advani angered party colleagues and the BJP’s ideological mentor by describing Pakistan’s founding father Mohammed Ali Jinnah as “a great man” during a visit there in May-June.—AFP