Uma Bharti hints at rejoining BJP in UP

New Delhi: After senior BJP leader LK Advani indicated that she would return to the party soon, Hindutva leader Uma Bharti on Sunday said she was willing to consider rejoining BJP and taking the responsibility of strengthening it in Uttar Pradesh as suggested by him.

Bharti, who was expelled from BJP in 2005 and went on to form her own Bhartiya Janshakti Party, said 11 months ago, party chief Nitin Gadkari and Advani had asked her to return to BJP and take up a post but she had decided then to take a break from politics for one year due to personal reasons.

Now she was willing to accept the suggestion of Gadkari and Advani, she told PTI-Bhasha.

Later, in a press release in Bhopal, she said she needed some more time to take a decision on her future political life and that there was also an option before her to contribute to the welfare of the country by taking up apolitical issues.

In his blog, Advani had on Saturday indicated that Bharti would return to the party soon to firm up the organisation in Uttar Pradesh and contest elections from the state.

"Advani ji has mentioned about UP in his blog. It will be a big challenge. If he feels I can take up this challenge then I also will find out some way to do it. I am only 50 years old and so I have both the time and ability to take up any responsibility," Bharti said.

"I will always see Advaniji as my leader as there are very few honest leaders like him in the country today. Gadkariji is also an honest leader," she said.

"Whatever responsibility the party has given me, I have fulfilled it. Now that there is talk about giving me the responsibility of UP, I will definitely find a way to do it," she said.

Advani had written on his blog that "Uma spoke to me, and on my advice, agreed that she would concentrate hereafter on strengthening the party unit in Uttar Pradesh, which ....had become greatly enfeebled. She said she would like to contest also from Uttar Pradesh."

After taking over as party president last year, Gadkari had expressed the intention of bringing back Jaswant Singh and Bharti to the party fold, Advani had said.

"Nitinji himself talked to Uma.... But she has sought some time from the party president before plunging headlong into the fray," Advani had said.

Speculation has been rife for several months now about Bharti's return to BJP. She has already quit BJS.

She had travelled to Raipur with Advani to attend the last rites of Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh's father earlier this year and also accompanied him to Somnath to offer prayers on the anniversary of his Rathyatra.

Bharti said the country is in the midst of a crisis as many parties are involved in corruption and maintained that corruption, criminalisation of politics, problems of use of electronic voting machines in polls, quota for backward women in reservation for women and construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya are the issues on which she will focus.