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ATAL Behari Vajpayee was conspicuous by his absence in Gandhinagar last fortnight. Principal arbiter last October when he persuaded Shankersinh Vaghela not to quit the BJP, the 'moderate face' of the saffron party divided his time between Lucknow and Delhi while the Suresh Mehta government teetered on the brink. 

It was a veritable reversal of roles. Party President L.K. Advani, who had dissociated himself from the Gujarat imbroglio last year, was upfront this time. He deputed four of his blue-eyed boys—General Secretaries Pramod Mahajan, Venkaiah Naidu, K.N. Govindacharya, Kushabhrau Thakre—to end the fracas.

The official explanation is that with the Uttar Pradesh polls imminent, Lucknow demanded Vajpayee's immediate attention. "His presence there may avert a Gujarat like situation in Uttar Pradesh a year from now," quipped a BJP leader, referring to the Kalyan Singh-Kalraj Mishra row. 

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But insiders say Vajpayee's absence underlines his deteriorating relationship with Advani who never approved of Vajpayee's compromise formula in Gujarat and wasn't averse to seeing it fail. And Vaghela blames Advani for his exit from the party.

While Govindacharya points out that all of Vaghela's demands—change of chief ministership as well as a share in Cabinet and state corporation posts—were met, senior party leaders admit that he had cause for complaint. The pro-Keshubhai Patel VHP and RSS cadres certainly worked towards his defeat in the Lok Sabha poll. Disciplinary action was also not taken against Patel supporters who consistently targeted the Vaghela faction.

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But moderate as always, Vajpayee persuaded BJP MPs to stop stalling Parliament proceedings last week. He is not alone in his disgust of factional fights, but there are differences over the method of tackling them. While some in the party want dissidence quelled by 'addition' of good people rather than 'subtraction' of troublesome ones, others favour a tough line.

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