New Delhi, March 23 : BJP's prime ministerial candidate L K Advani's gesture to call on Congress president Sonia Gandhi to greet her on Holi and present her his autobiography My Country, My Life has left Congressmen mumbling and fumbling for words. The ruling party officially welcomed the move, even as party leaders tried to decipher the purpose behind the visit of the senior BJP leader whose relations with Sonia have been anything but cordial since she became Congress president a decade back.

AICC spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said Advani's "spontaneous gesture" was met "in equal spirit" by the Congress president. "The Leader of the Opposition sought an appointment with the UPA chairperson, which he got. It is okay in democracy," said another spokesperson, Shakeel Ahmad.

Senior party leaders, however, insisted that nothing should be read in their meeting as he met both the UPA chairperson and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to present his book. Advani and his wife spent 20 minutes at 10 Janpath and politics did not figure in their talks, said sources. "This meeting would have little bearing on the relations between the two parties in future," added the source.

Questioning the "sincerity" of Advani’s gesture, a senior leader pointed out that the book he presented to the Congress president contained several critical references to Sonia and it was "unfair" on the part of the Opposition leader to seek an appointment with her to present such a book. In his autobiography,

Advani has critically dealt with Sonia's foreign origin issue, the family’s links with Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrocchi, and her unsuccessful attempt to form the Government in 1999.

"In his new status as the BJP's prime ministerial candidate, he knows that he will need wider acceptability a la Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He has to shed his Iron Man image and project himself as a flexible politician. His visit to 10 Janpath should be seen in that context," said a senior Congress leader and minister.

Epithets used by senior leaders to describe Advani's visit ranged from "drama", "charade" to "political masterstroke". They sought to decipher the political points Advani was purportedly trying to score through his visit. In one stroke, Advani, who recently rued communication gap between him and the Congress president, sent out a message — that he was ready to go an extra mile to bridge this gap, opined Congress sources.

His gesture to call on Sonia along with his wife to present his autobiography — despite the fact that she and the entire Congress had spurned his invitation to his book release function in the Capital last week — was in consonance with his advice to Rahul Gandhi during their chance meeting at an airport that the two mainstream parties were political adversaries, and not enemies.