Fellow travellers in the BJP

Fierce internal rivalries within the Bharatiya Janata Party leadership demand that other party members are required to perform a delicate balancing act. No one has excelled at this better than Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh. To avoid upsetting any one faction of the party, he has invited as many representatives of the different camps for his Vikas Yatra, a road show to showcase his government's achievements before the November polls. When he started the journey, he invited Lal Krishna Advani. Later, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi, who had emerged as a power centre in his own right, took a turn with the Yatra. Then, last week, Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj was invited to restart the Yatra, which had been put on hold following a Naxal attack on the Congress convoy that killed key leaders. Now, Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley has joined the Yatra. And when it concludes in the first week of next month, party President Rajnath Singh will be in Sarguja. As Singh is aware, it's a good idea to hedge your political bets because, to paraphrase a common saying, only Lord Ram knows who will have the last laugh.