Click to play videoNew Delhi: Once they were arch rivals - ace criminal lawyer Ram Jethmalani and former prime minister and BJP leader Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
The maverick lawyer was even forced to resign as law minister in 2000 due to his differences with Vajpayee.
Now a decade later, Jethmalani is back. He has been nominated for the Rajya Sabha by the BJP. And this time, he claims that he is back with blessings of Vajpayee himself.
"Everyone has to change according to the circumstances," said Jethmalani
The decision to send Jethmalani to the Upper House has stirred a huge controversy within the party. To many, this is being seen as an attempt to belittle Vajpayee - the grand old patriarch of the BJP.
In the past few months, leaders like Arun Shourie, Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh who owed their political success to Vajpayee have found themselves increasingly marginalised or even ousted.
All this has prompted Sheshadri Chari, member of BJP national executive to shoot off a written complaint to BJP president Nitin Gadkari.
Sheshadri Chari said, "I have written a letter to the party president, I will meet him and a decision will be taken."
The party president himself is now finding the going tough. Gadkari was given a chilling reminder of his problems when leaders like LK Advani, Arun Jaitley, Yashwant Sinha and Rajnath Singh failed to turn up in Mumbai at his pet initiative on governance. Even his management of Jharkhand crisis has come in for criticism -- all indications that the BJP's road ahead will continue to be a rough one.
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