BJP brushes doubts under red carpet for Jaya

She said she had no plans to meet Sonia Gandhi but refused to reveal whether she had been contacted by the Congress President. These were ripples of tension in a carefully created atmosphere of bonhomie.

The entire top brass of the BJP turned out to greet her but most of theGovernment was missing. Except for Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi and Power Minister R Kumaramangalam, no other Cabinet minister showed up. The Prime Minister came late but made up by staying on for dinner.The guest list included several diplomats, the most prominent of whom were the Pakistani and Chinese Heads of Mission. The Chinese Ambassador made it a point to spend several minutes talking to both Vajpayee and Jayalalitha.At the end of the reception, no one was any the wiser on the shape of things to come. Jayalalitha was surprisingly mellow in her comments, admitting quite candidly that she was outnumbered at the coordination committee meeting on the question of forming a JPC to probe the Bhagwat issue. “The AIADMK feels that it is better to have a JPC but all the others opposed it. The Prime Minister categorically ruled it out. We have to go along with it. After, we cannot act in isolation,” she stated. But, she added, her party had the right to express its views even when itwas not in agreement with the rest.

In the current atmosphere of uncertainty, the AIADMK leader’s words added up to very little. For the BJP, there is consolation in the fact that she did not say anything to rock their shaky boat. But Monday brings another tea party with a different guest list. And political circles are waiting to see whether the signals from there clear the present confusion.