The restoration of Gopinath Munde as BJP's top leader in Maharashtra and his detractors' declarations that they would contest the upcoming Assembly elections under his supremacy may not be too genuine: old rivalries could resurface at the time of selecting party candidates later in the year. The very fact that the Maharashtra BJP unit chief, Nitin Gadkari, had replaced the Mumbai party unit chief, a loyalist of Munde, and cancel his own orders after central leaders' intervention, reveals deep-seated rivalries, which have been papered over for now. Munde is a Dalit leader and Ms. Mayawati is already trying to spread her wings all over the country. The rift in BJP ranks was music to her ears and she will continue to talk about it when she enters the election fray in Maharashtra at the opportune time.

Munde drew his strength from being the right hand man of the late Pramod Mahajan, who was very powerful when Atal Behari Vajpayee was the PM, but even later he continued to call the shots as he was the virtual financier of the BJP with his Mumbai background and close ties with the captains of industry as well as the Shiv Sena boss, Bal Thackeray. Even the Sena leader is believed to have intervened with the BJP central leadership in support of Munde, whom he might be considering his new protégé.

Meanwhile, the BJP has faced a setback in Bihar where the Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar, replaced several Ministers from the party's quota. Those thrown out of office are red faced and now dissidents. They believe that the CM could not get rid of them unceremoniously, but apparently Nitish Kumar's clout is considerable and the BJP president, Rajnath Singh, had to announce his concurrence with the changes. In any case, it is the Chief Minister's constitutional prerogative to choose his Ministers and he exercised his strength in full measure. His claims of good governance are apparently not hollow after decades of misrule in Bihar. Some work on the ground is being done and visible. He could, therefore, insist that the junior partner that the BJP is in Bihar should give him a free hand and not interfere in his style of functioning. In any case, he is perceived as a man of mild manners, but quite tough at work and capable of demanding that Ministers as well as bureaucrats carry out his commands.

The BJP has been trying to mend its fences in other States. In Delhi, it has brought back Madanlal Khurana after a few years spent by him in wilderness. That wilderness has diminished his popularity and one hears very little of him any more even though at one time he was the unofficial treasurer of the party and very close to LK Advani. Khurana had joined hands with Ms. Uma Bharti, who had floated her own BJP called the Bharatiya Janashakti Party. She may not have the financial resources to maintain a strong party cadre to challenge other parties, but her fiery style and one time popularity and the support from the RSS could damage the BJP's electoral prospects in Madhya Pradesh, where she was Chief Minister, and elsewhere. The BJP is not trying to woo or win her over and that is something that the RSS will neither forget nor forgive.

The RSS may have hesitantly acknowledged Advani as the Prime Ministerial prospect of the BJP in the next General Election, but it has also accepted the Hindutva mascot, Narendra Modi, who has been playing games of his own. Being almost 30 years younger than Advani, the RSS has no option but to accept a hard-headed and hardcore protagonist of its ideology. Apparently, the RSS does not expect Mr. Advani to win 150 or more Lok Sabha seats for the BJP and at a suitable time, it may shift its preference to Mr. Modi even if the BJP National Executive does not endorse such a plan whenever it is announced. Mr. Advani needs Mr. Modi badly to win his Lok Sabha seat of Gandhinagar and he has, therefore, described him as the tallest party leader after himself. He has, therefore, not hesitated to dump Mr. Rajnath Singh, the party president, because Uttar Pradesh has slipped out of the BJP's hands after rows with Ms. Mayawati.

To please the RSS, Mr. Advani may have tried to endorse the Akhand Bharat idea by proposing a confederation of India and Pakistan in the distant future. But even the RSS talks no more of such things, being so unpractical. It is again an intrusion into the area of foreign policy, which is not Mr. Advani's forte. It cannot but have left even his own party men confused. It has been immediately denounced by Pakistan. Is Mr. Advani trying to make amends for his Jinnah secular filibuster by going in the reverse direction? At best, Mr. Advani could have spoken about a strong South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation and fruits that all of South Asia can pluck from Saarc, but perhaps moderation and pragmatism are not entirely in his line of thinking; jumping the gun might well be.

The BJP and Mr. Advani might be seeing an opportunity for themselves in the high inflation and rising prices of food and all commodities to spur the incumbency factor against the ruling United Progressive Alliance led by the Congress, but will the BJP be able to cash on this factor in the upcoming elections to several States later this year and to the Lok Sabha next year? Time will tell.