Advani's dinner diplomacy before 'chintan baithak'

Before being served the food, members of Parliament belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies from the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) would be treated to a staged play of actor Anupam Kher at the dinner hosted on July 30 by L K Advani, leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha.

Kher, whose actress-wife Kiron had joined the BJP before the Lok Sabha elections, would act in the play aptly named ‘Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai’ (anything can happen).

The title of the play has set off speculation on whether Advani was aiming at sending a message to his party, which is yet to come out with an authoritative account of why it lost the recent Lok Sabha elections, through the play. Also, the BJP needs to re-work its relations with the NDA allies, some of whom like the Janata Dal (United) are looking for a reason to keep a distance from it.

BJP sources said Advani was hosting this off-beat party as the BJP is planning to chalk out a joint strategy with its allies for the coming Assembly election in Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Haryana.

Meanwhile, sources said the BJP is yet to finalise dates for its much-awaited 'chintan baithak’ – brainstorming session – where the party leaders are supposed to hold a thorough discussion among themselves on the party’s election debacle; and a host of other issues raised by the senior party leaders through their angry letters sent to party chief Rajnath Singh soon after the Lok Sabha election.

Earlier, the ‘chintan baithak’ was scheduled to be held in the middle of August.