Team spirit

Arun Shourie wasn't a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member anymore, claimed a party leader, who coordinated the recent membership drive for the party. The BJP recruited 110 million new members during the membership drive. It had asked all existing members to register again with the party by giving a missed call on a call centre number. Shourie, the BJP leader claimed, didn't give that all-important missed call and therefore ceased to be a member of the party. Nobody is saying his words were in reaction to Shourie's recent comment that the National Democratic Alliance government was little more than Congress plus a cow, but other party leaders, including Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu, have refused to react to the view of the minister in Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Cabinet. For that matter, BJP leaders have largely shied away from reacting to its Bihar MP Shatrughan Sinha's recent 'anti-party' comments and actions, except this quip by a party leader: "We have eight million members in Bihar. Of these, 7,999,999 are working for the party."