The increasing differences between Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and senior BJP leader Jaswant Singh are becoming too obvious to be missed. The former Union finance and foreign minister is reportedly upset with Raje for ignoring him and his son Manvendra, who is a Member of Parliament from Barmer.

While Singh considers himself to be one of the top brass of the BJP and expects Raje to treat him as one, Raje, who holds a special place in the party because of her mother VijayaRaje Scindia, through her actions has denied him the status.

Sources say the differences between the two date back to the late 1990s when Singh was the Union Minister for External Affairs and Raje the Minister of State for External Affairs. Singh, after taking over as the External Affairs Minister, had also taken over Raje’s office in South Block, which reportedly laid the foundation for the differences.

Though all seemed well during the 2003 Assembly elections with Singh attending Raje’s swearing-in ceremony, the rift between the two has only widened since then. Senior leaders in the BJP say the two have been busy playing their own game for power.

“There were several times during the 2004 Lok Sabha elections when Jaswant Singh wanted the party to give tickets to his supporters. It was Raje who came in his way,” says Chandraraj Singhvi, a former BJP leader, who had played an important role in selecting candidates then.

Currently the All India Vice-President of the Bharatiya Jan Shakti Party, Singhvi alleges that he was expelled from the party in 2005 after several rebels and Singh launched an agitation against him. “I was a Raje supporter and the rebels, along with Singh, had a problem with that,” he said. Singhvi is the only politician who agreed to speak on the issue.

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