NEW DELHI, 25 December 2004 — The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) yesterday revoked the suspension of Uma Bharati, a former Madhya Pradesh chief minister, a little over a month after she was punished for her public showdown with party President L.K. Advani.

“The suspension of Uma Bharati has been revoked,” former BJP President M. Venkaiah Naidu told reporters here yesterday.

Naidu said: “It is decision of the party president, taken in the interest of the party.”

Naidu dodged queries on her possible reinstatement as party general secretary, hinting that she was back as an ordinary member, for now.

“She had been suspended, the suspension has been revoked, so she becomes a member of the party. I can make announcements, but I cannot make pronouncements. If there was any such thing, I would have told you.”

Uma Bharati was removed as general secretary and suspended on Nov. 11 after she lashed out at colleagues and walked out of a party meeting in full view of TV cameras, embarrassing senior leaders including Advani. Though her return had been more or less certain, it followed a long process of persuasion and cajoling before the BJP leadership relented just a day before former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s 80th birthday today.

Advani was believed to have pushed for bringing back the mercurial Uma Bharati in the face of intense objection from the second rung leadership, which had managed to stave off her return till now.

Bharati’s rebellion had brought into the open the intense rivalry within the younger leadership of a party that once prided itself for its discipline.

After her suspension, Bharati had met both Vajpayee and Advani, apparently repentant but also defiant in parts.

She also spent days in the hills, surfacing occasionally with controversial comments and performing “penance” in Ayodhya by washing clothes and cleaning shoes earlier this week. BJP leaders said Uma Bharati’s return had become politically expedient in view of upcoming assembly polls in Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana where the party would need as many campaigners as it can muster.

But Naidu was noncommittal on whether she would be sent to Bihar for campaigning. “The party will decide where to send whom.”