PTI
 
Patna, Nov 4: Ruling out the possibility of her return to BJP, Bhartiya Janshakti Party leader Uma Bharti accused veteran leaders Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L K Advani of being in the grip of powerbrokers.

"Atalji and Advaniji are in the grip of powerbrokers. Their plight can be likened to that of widowed aunts whose feet everybody touches but whose advice nobody listens to," Bharti said.

Stating that it was her 'good luck' that she was not in the BJP as it had 'shunned' its pro-Hindutva ideology, Bharti said, "there is no question of my return to BJP. Instead I would like to ask Advani when he will leave Jinnah and return to Ram; Rajnath Singh when he will give up politics of crime and corruption and return to clean politics; Jaswant Singh when he will leave Kandahar and return to India?"

Bharti, who had on Friday campaigned for Pradeep Joshi, VHP-backed Independent candidate for November 6 bypoll to Bhagalpur parliamentary seat, where former Union Minister Shahnawaz Hussain is the BJP candidate, claimed that a fatwa was issued by the imams from various parts of the country to vote for the BJP nominee.

"The BJP, at the behest of Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is engaging in the same kind of fatwa politics which Lalu [RJD president] espoused. This I strongly decry. There is nothing wrong if Muslims choose to vote for BJP but that should be only after the party clarifies its ideology. Getting the clerics to issue fatwas in support of Shahnawaz is wrong," she said.