New Delhi, September 1
BJP president Rajnath Singh invited over his “rivals” within the party, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, M Venkaiah Naidu and Ananth Kumar, for a feast at his residence today, ostensibly to discuss the impending Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh but actually to thaw the “bitter” relations between them.

Confined only to these four leaders, the luncheon diplomacy was also significant as it was probably for the first time in Rajnath’s four-year term that these leaders, identified closely with Leader of Opposition LK Advani, condescended to attend a meeting at his house.

Earlier because of the visible coldness between Rajnath and Advani camps, all such meetings were held strictly at party headquarters. After BJP declared Advani its prime-ministerial candidate, his house became the alternate venue for most important deliberations.

The condescension of the Advani quartet to go over to Rajnath’s house is being linked to the recent RSS/BJP efforts to dispel the image of infighting and bickering in the party.

Sources said two important issues were discussed at this meeting: the refusal of Rajasthan BJP legislative party leader Vasundhara Raje to resign and the sudden decision by Sushma Swaraj to go to Jaswant Singh’s house to ask him to quit the post of PAC Chairman in Parliament.

Party leaders were generally reticent about today’s deliberations. But Venkaiah Naidu gave an inkling of what transpired inside Rajnath’s residence when he came to the defence of Vasundhara and told waiting newsmen outside: “All media reports are speculative and not true.

She is actually unwell. We hope once she recovers, she will abide by the party's directive and resign. She has written a letter informing about her health and that she will need to rest for a week.”

For over a month now, Vasundhara, identified with Advani faction, has been defying Rajnath’s directive to quit. She has also demonstrated a disdain and reluctance to deal directly with Rajnath.

Therefore, as a concession to her regal status the party allowed her to deal with Venkaiah instead. But yesterday she sent her son Dushyant Singh to Venkaiah with a list of demands as a pre-condition for her resignation.

Meanwhile, the party also got busy denying today that Sushma Swaraj and SS Ahluwalia went to meet Jaswant Singh to pressurise him to resign from the post of PAC chairman in Parliament.

The party also denied that there was any attempt on their part to persuade Jaswant to return to the BJP fold. Instead, party sources described this only a courtesy call. But this was a clear afterthought.

Yesterday, while BJP spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad vehemently denied any bid to revoke Jaswant’s expulsion, he would not state the purpose of this meeting and left it to Sushma to explain. But Sushma remained incommunicado throughout the day.

BJP sources saw nothing more than an attempt to browbeat Jaswant and secure his resignation.