After reaffirming his resolve to contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha election, former Vice-President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat went a step further on Thursday and said he had not felicitated L K Advani when he was elected the NDA alliance’s PM candidate, and that “other senior leaders in the BJP, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, too, should contest the coming election”. His proposed meeting with Vajpayee on Thursday, however, didn’t come through. “Age-wise, I am senior to all other party leaders in the BJP,” he said.

With a picture frame of second RSS chief Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar strategically placed on the table in front of him, Shekhawat addressed a crowded press conference during the day and put the BJP in a spot by demanding a probe into “the Rs 22,000-crore scam during the previous Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan,” a demand originally made by the Congress in its election manifesto. By evening, Shekhawat was holding forth “on the significance of allies in the coming elections” and “how he had made three of his ministers resign because they wanted to take party in the Ram Janmabhoomi stir” in early 90s.

“He may not be technically in the BJP, but he is definitely one of the tallest leaders in the party and his voice means a lot in north India,” Rajasthan BJP leader Narpat Singh Rajvi, who’s also Shekhawat’s son-in-law, told The Indian Express.

After venting his ire at the BJP president for ridiculing his move to contest the coming parliamentary elections — Shekhawat said Rajnath “was not even born when I started my innings in politics” — he met Rajnath Singh after Jaswant Singh took the former vice-president to his place where Rajnath was already waiting. Shekhawat was, however, far from satisfied with the meeting, and reportedly wanted “firm assurances on Rajasthan”. He was also dissatisfied by Rajnath’s explanation that “he bore no ill-will towards the elder leader”.

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