Uma’s platform

On her way to Hubli, Bharati said her arrest was an indication of trouble for any movement undertaken to save India’s pride. ‘‘The BJP does not want to politicise the issue. The Congress-Left combine is giving a communal colour to a simple act of hoisting the Tricolour,’’ she added.

Amid her sloganeering supporters, Bharati said Sonia reopened the case to settle political scores even though three successive chief ministers of Karnataka had chosen to forget it. ‘‘Veerappa Moily, S.M. Krishna and even Dharam Singh had decided not to pursue it, but an arrest warrant was issued suddenly on Sonia’s diktats,’’ she alleged.

At her vitriolic best against Sonia, Bharati asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Karnataka CM Dharam Singh to listen to their conscience instead of blindly obeying the ‘‘diktats of a foreigner’’.

The BJP strategically sent national secretary and minority poster boy Shahnawaz Hussain to accompany Bharati from Pune to Hubli. Hussain lambasted the Centre for following ‘‘two rules for two cases’’.

‘‘Taslimuddin is roaming free despite an NBW against him under the Arms Act simply because the RJD is in power,’’ he said.

And as the Nizamuddin-Vasco Goa Express, by which Bharati was travelling, got delayed by three hours, irked passengers had a one question: ‘‘Couldn’t she have flown to Hubli?’’ ‘‘My schedule has gone awry,’’ said Felix Cardozo, in Pune for a wedding.

After a hard day’s work, Seema Ramchandani could have done with a peaceful journey home by the Pimpri local. ‘‘A public facility such as this is not the place to hold a gathering,’’ she said.