In case the party loses its governments in Delhi and Rajasthan, it hopes to silence its critics and neutralise the Congress threat by coming to power in two other States - MP and Chhattisgarh.

It seems that the projection of a chief ministerial candidate for MP is a knotty problem. After the one-and-a-half-hour long meeting of the party's Election Management Committee this afternoon, the BJP leaders said that the question was still not decided and that it would be discussed at the Central Office-bearers meeting tomorrow.

In Rajasthan, indications are that Chief Minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat will lead the elections though the party isshying away from declaring him its chief ministerial candidate. Sources said that the party was considering declaring that this would be Shekhawat's last election (in view of his age and poor health) in the hope that this would garner sympathy votes and shore up the party's performance.

With the BJP's bright prospects in MP, there is a keen tussle for leadership. Efforts are on to persuade former MP chief ministers Sunderlal Patwa and Kailash Joshi not to stand in the Assembly elections, though Patwa, who is close to BJP president Kushabhau Thakre, has already announced that he will contest. Vikram Verma, currently leader of the Opposition in the State Assembly, is also a front-runner as a chief ministerial candidate.

Though the BJP has always held that it is only fair to voters that parties project a Chief Minister or Prime Minister, leaders said today that it was the ``tradition'' in MP not to project a leader as CM. However, there have been recent statements to the contrary by senior leaders likePramod Mahajan, Venkaiah Naidu and Sushma Swaraj that the party would soon be announcing leaders for all the three poll States (Delhi, Rajasthan and MP).

It was then argued that this was to confuse the Congress since it would be unable to announce its own leaders in Rajasthan and MP due to intense factionalism.

In Chhatisgarh, sources said that senior leaders Nand Kumar Sai (MP State unit president), Lakhiram Aggarwal, Dilip Singh Judeo and Chandrashekhar Sahu are in the running for leading the campaign.

At today's Election Management Committee meeting, of which Venkaiah Naidu is the convener, strategies of campaigning in the three States were discussed in detail. Tomorrow, the election in-charges of the States (K N Govindacharya for Rajasthan, Naidu for Delhi and Narendra Modi for MP) will give their reports on election preparations to the Central office bearers.

This would include their assessment on the prospects of the BJP as well as other parties and suggestions for campaign themes and so on. Themanifestoes for each State will also be discussed, besides the roles of the BJP's various morchas.

Sources said that other wings of the Sangh Parivar, mainly the RSS, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad would also supplement the BJP's campaign.