Bhopal, March 6: The BJP high command has asked Uma Bharti to call off a power dinner that had been touted as a trial of strength between her and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Babulal Gaur.

Uma was told to return to Delhi where the BJP is locked in a battle with the Congress over Jharkhand, Bihar and Goa.

After reaching Delhi yesterday, the sadhvi held a series of meetings with senior BJP leaders, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Arun Jaitley, and reportedly pressed for Gaur?s removal.

The dinner, scheduled for Thursday, was being seen as an attempt by Uma, who had to make way for Gaur after an uproar over an arrest warrant issued in Karnataka against her, to gauge her support among the MLAs.

The BJP?s intervention to call back Uma came after her sustained efforts to establish supremacy rattled Gaur.

The chief minister had been stressing that he continues to enjoy the central leadership?s support but until yesterday, his line of argument had few takers. In fact, bureaucratic circles were agog with speculation that Gaur?s days were numbered.

Officially, the BJP said Uma?s dinner had been called off because the Assembly was going to vote on the budget on Thursday and that the House proceedings could stretch late into the night. But no new date has been set.

One of the regular features of interactions between Uma and BJP legislators in Bhopal was criticism of the chief minister.

Some MLAs had gone to the extent of describing the current administration as a ?puppet? in the hands of senior Congress leaders. They alleged that two former Congress chief ministers were having a say in appointments and policy decisions.

A few days ago, former chief minister Digvijay Singh had created a flutter when he claimed that a section of the BJP was fomenting communal trouble to get rid of Gaur.

Gaur also ran into rough weather from another quarter. His helicopter twice landed at wrong destinations today, forcing him and other ministers to travel by road near Betul.