By IANS,
New Delhi : The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was Wednesday ambiguous about the much touted return of veterans Jaswant Singh and Uma Bharti to the party fold.
Party spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman said there was no development concerning them when asked about reports that the two leaders would return to the BJP before the party’s national executive in Patna in the second week of June.
“There is nothing to report as of today,” Sitharaman told IANS. She said party president Nitin Gadkari favoured the return of the leaders but there has not been any development.
She, however, said political significance could be attached to the gesture of senior party leader L.K. Advani offering to take Jaswant Singh on the special plane to Jaipur to attend the last rites of former vice-president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.
“Advani is among the seniormost party leaders. Jaswant Singh is an MP. Any (amount of) political significance can be attached to it (Advani’s call),” she said.
Singh, who is an MP from Darjeeling, had termed Advani’s gesture as “very courteous” and touching. Though he did not affirm his return to the BJP, Singh said he had spent 32 years in the party and could not get it out of his blood stream.
Singh was expelled from the BJP last year following controversy over his book on Pakistan’s founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah.
Uma Bharti, a former chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, had resigned from her own party Bharatiya Jan Shakti in March this year, causing speculation about her return to the BJP.
BJP sources said Uma Bharti’s return is being opposed by a section of party leaders in Madhya Pradesh. She was expelled from the party in 2005 following her accusations against the party leadership.