| Most of them have started positioning themselves for the role. Former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharti turned an arrest warrant into a passport to the national party leadership by launching a "rail show" on her way to Hubli in |
| Karnataka to surrender in a 10-year-old case. Her "tiranga rath yatra" is slated to start tomorrow. |
| But in Maharashtra, there are few takers for her charismatic presence. According to sources, Bharti has been asked to finish the Maharashtra leg of her yatra by September 18, nearly a month before the October 13 elections, because her version of campaign does not jell with Pramod Mahajan's plan of things. |
| "After the Lok Sabha debacle, Mahajan badly needs success in the Maharashtra polls, which appears within grasp, and has been working hard for it. If Bharti comes later, she might have run away with the credit," said a party leader. Mahajan is aiming at returning to central politics with Maharashtra win. |
| Mahajan is not the only one uncomfortable with Bharti's increasing prominence. Sushma Swaraj, having spearheaded the attack on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, has launched a "Savarkar yatra" parallel to Bharti's "tiranga yatra". According to sources, she prevailed upon Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani at the Bangalore party meet to be allowed to lead the "Savarkar yatra". |
| Swaraj claims that her performance at the 1998 Lok Sabha polls against Gandhi in Bellary proves that she can match the Congress president's stature. But Bharti supporters were not happy with the Swaraj's yatra, said a senior leader. |
| In all this, Arun Jaitley is playing his cards close to his chest. Of the four top second-rung leaders- Jaitley, Bharti, Mahajan and Swaraj-he is the most visible in Delhi in his capacity as the party spokesman. |
| According to sources, the RSS is closest to Bharti. Though she may have got a headstart over others, possibilities of dark horses upsetting her calculations cannot be denied. |
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