Even before winning a single seat, and less than a month before it celebrates its second anniversary, Uma Bharati’s Bharatiya Janashakti has vertically split.

Former Union minister Prahlad Patel, her confidant till a few months ago, has declared himself the new president of the party. Six state presidents had recently met in New Delhi and elected Patel their new leader, an outcome that was expected in the aftermath of Gujarat results.

Bharati’s supporters reacted by referring Patel’s case to the newly-elected official president Sanghpriya Gautam, who is also chairman of the party’s disciplinary committee.

When they were together, Bharati often characterised his loyalty to her as the one displayed by Hanuman to Lord Rama and he too would gloat over the mythological reference. But the Sadhvi’s flip-flop over fielding candidates in Gujarat saw Patel raise the banner of revolt, but in a discreet manner. Like his mentor, he too decided to observe maunvrat (vow of silence) post-Gujarat elections.

Since then the two haven’t spoken to each other throwing the fledgling party into turmoil. Patel has accused her of trying to return to the BJP at any cost. On his part, he has made it clear that he would not return to the BJP. “Uma Bharati is desperate to return to the BJP,” he says, accusing her of destroying the party she founded on April 30, 2006. According to him her dilly-dallying over Gujarat was dictated by her wish to return to the BJP.

Bharati’s supporters accuse Patel of trying to hobnob with former Congress Chief Minister Digvijay Singh and BJP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Patel was the first person to raise the ‘dumper scam’ in which Chouhan’s wife was accused of taking favours from an industrial group in lieu of concessions given by the present Government.

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