New Delhi, March 24: Gathering its wits after the shock of Sonia Gandhi’s twin resignations, the BJP today tried to shift the focus from the “sacrifice” to the government’s earlier, allegedly dodgy, moves to protect her.

Party leaders argued that yesterday’s “melodrama” couldn’t whitewash the government’s move of truncating the Parliament session, nor did it disprove that the adjournment was a prelude to a “save Sonia” ordinance.

BJP leaders, including party president Rajnath Singh and leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani, went into a 90-minute huddle this morning to work out a political counter-offensive.

Emerging from it, they insisted that none of their MPs held an office of profit.

“No one from the BJP is involved,” Advani said. That includes the party’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha, V.K. Malhotra, he stressed.

The party’s strategy against Sonia’s move, as revealed by Advani, is two-pronged:

• De-link the issue of offices of profit from the Centre’s “undemocratic” move to adjourn Parliament sine die, and campaign against the latter

• Blame the government’s “inept and vindictive” political strategy for Sonia’s resignation. Continue to ridicule the “sacrifice”.

As for the issue of offices of profit, the BJP believes the government would be justified in bringing in legislation to clarify the matter.

The party has demanded that Parliament be reconvened at once. Though the prime reason is to attack the government for the earlier adjournment, BJP leaders said they were ready to support a bill that defines what an office of profit is.

“When the bill comes, we’ll see what we have to do,” Rajnath said.

Many in the party believe that the post of National Advisory Council (NAC) chairperson ? which Sonia resigned with her Lok Sabha seat ? may not strictly be an office of profit.

“The issue is not whether Sonia was holding an office of profit. In all fairness, NAC is probably not an office of profit,” a party leader said.

Earlier, the party had demanded Sonia’s disqualification on the ground that she held an office of profit.

“Our focus would be on the manner in which the government went about it and the way Parliament was adjourned to bring in an ordinance through the back door,” the leader added.

The second part of the campaign would try to pull Sonia down from the moral high horse.

The BJP would be arguing she was a victim of her party’s political ineptness and vindictive desire to see Jaya Bachchan humiliated. A second, more effective, method would be to keep ridiculing Sonia’s “sacrifice”.

Advani coined fresh slogans today, such as: “Tyaag nahin majboori hai; naitikta nahin nautanki hai (Not a sacrifice but a necessity; not morals, just melodrama).”