New Delhi, Aug 30 - Despite the Bharatiya Janata Party stoutly denying a leadership change, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat has been summoning BJP leaders at different levels for one-on-one discussion on a change of guard -- virtually taking charge of the crisis-ridden party.

A day after stating at a press conference that the RSS did not interfere with party matters, Bhagwat Sunday held talks with at least two BJP vice-presidents - Bal Apte, who was tasked to travel across the country and gather intelligence about the party's poll debacle, and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a strategist who lately finds himself sidelined from the BJP's decision-making process.

'Bhagwatji is basically trying to assess whom the partymen find the most acceptable and a general opinion about the party affairs. He has already met about a dozen leaders at various levels of the (BJP) hierarchy,' a BJP functionary, who too was summoned by the RSS chief, told IANS, requesting anonymity as these meetings are an internal affair of the party.

'Bhagwatji is trying to find suitable candidates to replace Rajnath Singh and Advaniji and he is involved in this process to ensure consensual decision,' another leader, who also met Bhagwat, said.

While BJP chief Rajnath Singh's term ends in December this year, the RSS has called for a younger leader to take charge of the party affairs, tacitly suggesting veteran leader L.K. Advani, 82, too should step down and allow someone younger to succeed him as leader of opposition in the Lok Sabha. Though Rajnath Singh is the party chief, it is known that Advani calls the shots in the organisation.

However, officially both the BJP and the RSS maintained Sunday that there was no change of guard in the offing, that the party would take its own decisions, and the Sangh has nothing to do with it.

The RSS is the ideological forbear of the BJP.

Refuting media reports that the party would effect a leadership change at the behest of the RSS, BJP spokesperson Prakash Javadekar told reporters here: 'He (veteran leader L.K. Advani) is leader of opposition (in the Lok Sabha), Rajnath Singh is our president; no one is resigning.