The annual Urs festival celebrations at Ajmer Sharif had an unexpected visitor this year in Murli Manohar Joshi. This veteran saffronite not only offered a chaddar at the Dargah, he also joined the mehfil for half an hour. No one can quite understand what’s bitten Joshi. So far, Vajpayee’s been the one to send a chaddar during the Urs festival every year. This year too, his faithful representative in Lucknow, Shiv Kumar, travelled to the dargah with Vajpayee’s offering. Political circles are speculating about the motive behind Joshi’s gesture. Is he, like Advani, trying to ‘‘secularise’’ his image to make himself more acceptable to NDA partners? He certainly seems to be jostling with Advani for space in the ruling coalition. And he obviously feels there’s no better place to start than Ajmer.

For Rajnath, It Took One Village

The BJP’s latest political programme—BJP Gaon ki Or (BJP Village-bound)—seems doomed to failure if party general secretary and former UP Chief Minister Rajnath Singh’s experience is any indicator. Singh decided to flag off his rural tours in a village near Hapur in western UP. He entered with much fanfare, atop a tractor which he drove himself, and mounted the podium to address the gathering. Unfortunately, the villagers didn’t seem interested in hearing what he had to say. Instead, they pounded him with embarrassing questions about his party’s inability to deliver. Mayawati is going all out to help her Dalits, they said. What is the BJP doing for its voters, they asked. You say you are helpless because it’s not your government, but you are part of the coalition, they said. What are doing in the government if you can’t help us, they wanted to know. Singh had no answers to their queries. Their parting shot was a clear warning—this simply won’t do, watch out next time. The experience has shaken Singh so much that he’s not in any hurry to resume his tour.

In The Name Of JP