Uma Bharti back in BJP fold

Overcoming stiff opposition from a section the party’s top leaders, BJP chief Nitin Gadkari finally reinducted Uma Bharati into BJP on Tuesday, almost six years after she was expelled from it for indisciplinary conduct. The firebrand Hindutva face of BJP, however, has been put in charge of Uttar Pradesh elections coming up next year, and kept away from her home state Madhya Pradesh. This was one of the conditions of her return, to ensure that she did not come in the way of present MP chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Uma thanked all party leaders for accepting her back in BJP. It took Gadkari more than a year to convince party colleagues to allow Uma’s return to the party, while she was ready to be back around the Lok Sabha polls in 2009. For the party, she will be a strong OBC face to pit against UP’s dalit chief minister Mayawati. Since then, the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister had almost dissolved all activities of her own party, to ensure that it did not hurt BJP’s votes, specially in Madhya Pradesh, where the OBC leader has some following. Senior party leader L K Advani, who she had openly defied and got expelled in 2005, and RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat were keen on Uma’s return to the party. Even Gadkari, was in favour of taking back leaders like Jaswant Singh, Uma and Kalyan Singh, who had at some point had to leave BJP, when he took over as party chief. But he was under presure from party colleagues who had been stalling Uma’s return. Announcing her re-entry, Gadkari said UP will be the main area of Uma’s work now and she will have a “prominent role” in the party’s poll campaign there. It was not without reason that Gadkari on Tuesday mentioned “the decision to reinduct her into BJP was taken after party leaders unanimously accepted the decision.” BJP will get a new energy in UP with Uma, Gadkari said. Bharati (52) was expelled for indiscipline when she defied the BJP’s central leadership in December 2005, when Advani was party chief. She subsequently floated her own Bhartiya Janshakti Party. Expressing happiness over her homecoming, Bharti said, she was feeling like the proverbial bird of the ship, which leaves it only to come back again. “Out of the party for five, six years, I have realised that only BJP is my anchor and destination... In these six years I learnt that if one has to serve the nation and keep some ideological committment, there is no option other than BJP. I want to forget the last five years I was out of BJP,” she said, in the presence of Gadkari and other party leaders at Tuesday’s press conference. The final call on Uma’s return was taken at the Lucknow national executive of BJP that was held over the last weekend.