New Delhi, Sept. 12: The pendulum of power has been swinging madly in the BJP, with insiders laying wagers on whether Atal Bihari Vajpayee or Lal Krishna Advani would win the “battle” over Madan Lal Khurana.

Advani loyalists said the “party”, which had distanced itself from him after the Jinnah controversy, had “regrouped” and with their “solidarity” and “support” it was “advantage” the BJP president. Vajpayee, they said, was as usual “isolated”.

The claim is notionally true because Vajpayee never pretended to be an organisational person and so had no group following. Nor was there anyone to give his “version” of the developments.

But there were straws in the wind and those in the BJP who caught them said they portended a “serious” crisis if the “titans” do not make up.

First, the RSS is readying to attack Advani again. The speculation is that if Advani makes a permanent adversary of Vajpayee, it would be on peril of losing his “chair”.

There lies the importance of Vajpayee. Neutral voices in the BJP said he had the kind of “stature and authority” vis-?-vis the Sangh that Advani did not.

Vajpayee, they recalled, could describe the Babri Masjid’s demolition as “unfortunate” and refuse to join the Ram rath yatra (he was asked to by the Sangh). Yet, in 1995, when the BJP looked as though it was within striking distance of power in Delhi, the Sangh opted to project Vajpayee and not Advani as the prime ministerial candidate.

These sources also remembered how Vajpayee had Sangh sarsanghchalak K.S. Sudarshan banished to Nagpur from the capital’s Jhandewalan when his attacks on swadeshi and Vajpayee’s foster family got too frequent.

Yet, when Advani was entangled in the Sangh’s clutches, a phone call from Vajpayee to Nagpur was enough to earn for the BJP president a transient reprieve.

When general secretary Pramod Mahajan described Vajpayee as the “tallest leader” in the BJP, the sources said he reflected the sentiments of the cadre. “Even today he is our only vote-catcher. He commands respect within the country and outside,” said a Bihar MP.

Khurana, sources conceded, was “small change”. The “litmus” test of Advani’s authority lay in Gujarat. If he has forfeited Sangh support, so has Modi.

The sources said the Sangh and the VHP ? once staunch Modi backers ? will be “too happy” to see the back of the chief minister now.