Bharatiya Janata Party's second-rung leaders are believed to be giving the cold shoulder to their top brass' reconciliation overtures to rebel Uma Bharti, who has withdrawn her candidates to prevent a split in Hindutva votes in Uttar Pradesh.
BJP sources on Tuesday said that many of the party's office-bearers were opposed to re-admission of Bharti, who has a large mass base in Madhya Pradesh and parts of Uttar Pradesh and Uttrakhand.
Almost the entire BJP in Madhya Pradesh is disapproving of the idea to go on for reconciliation with the predecessor of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the sources said.
Bharti, who has been a vociferous critic of the saffron party's second-rung leadership in Delhi, is now heading the Bharatiya Jan Shakti, which she says espouses the Sangh's core Hindutva ideology.
During his campaign tour in Uttar Pradesh this month, senior BJP leader L K Advani held out an olive branch to the Jan Shakti chief, saying those who had been with his party should return to its fold in order to strengthen Hindutva.
Bharti, believed to hold sway in Uttar Pradesh's Bundelkhand region, pulled out her candidates after a similar Hindutva appeal by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad.
BJP sources said the former chief minister has on her part has set a condition that she could consider returning to the party provided her loyalists too were readmitted. Bharti was expelled from the BJP last year after her outbursts against Advani.
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