It was an eye-opener for campaign managers and crowd mobilisers who realised that even a leader of Dr Joshi's stature would not prove a crowd-puller when disenchantment has set in and the common man seems to have had enough of polls and politics.

Despite the local unit of the BJP carefully selecting the busy Dhebar Chowk area as venue for the first public meeting by a national leader in Rajkot, the crowd response was not in the least encouraging about 2,000 people by an optimistic estimate.

The enthusiasm and dramatics which generally pervade such public meetings was completely missing.

As campaign organisers sat nervously craning their necks to see if anyone was joining the crowd, passersby dropped in casually to have a look at the proceedings and left.

Consequently, Dr Joshi, in a very subdued ambience, was left to address a crowd comprising mostly local MLAs, party leaders and slogan-shouting workers.

In his characteristically polished speech, he first pitted Atal Behari Vajpayee against Sonia Gandhi. ``Soniaji is indulging in escapism. They (Congress) wanted to keep everything a secret but we beat them at their own game,'' he said, drawing a round of applause.

He then took a dig at the Congress high-command for running out of ideas and thinking of pitting Priyanka Gandhi against Vajpayee. ``BJP is the only party which can tackle international pressure against our country and Vajpayee is the only man who commands respect from Bill Clinton and also dares to say no to him.''

Carefully choosing words and pausing a lot, Dr Joshi touched on various issues including education for all and national security, besides promising a stable government to an unresponsive crowd.

``I think this is a clear indication of public mood. People don't care any more about politics and governments,'' remarked a bystander at the chowk.

``Last time, BJP meetings were marked by festivity and an overwhelming crowd response. This doesn't look like a national leader's public meeting at all,'' said another.

The poor crowd response may have dampened Murli Manohar Joshi's spirits a little, but a bout of emotive display for the party and its leaders by representatives of the powerful Kshatriya Samaj here proved compensation enough. Local leaders of the Samaj including Rajputs descended on the meeting pledging their support and insisted on tying the customary `safas' or headgear to all the leaders. Their presence proved a saving grace and added a little colour and cheer to the otherwise drab event.