The Bhartiya Janata Party headquarters is agog with speculation over return of former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti to the party, following her meeting with party veteran Lal Krishna Advani and president Nitin Gadkari here on Wednesday.

BJP General Secretary Ananth Kumar, however, tried to skirt all questions on her re-entry in the party while addressing a press conference here on the meeting of the party's national office-bearers. He said the office-bearers' meeting was not the occasion to discuss such issues.

Pressed further if there is a serious move to take Uma Bharti back in the party as she has already disassociated herself from a regional party she had floated after removal from the BJP, Ananth Kumar yielded, saying all such questions will be taken up in the Central Parliamentary Board meeting whenever it is held.

When told that Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Chauhan, who was opposed to Uma Bharti's return to the BJP, had himself told Advani and Gadkari that her induction will give strength to women in the state, Ananth Kumar asserted that Chauhan did not meet the leaders to plead Uma Bharti's case.

He said Chauhan had met him also as he was incharge of Madhya Pradesh affairs to discuss election of the new president of the BJP's Madhya Pradesh unit as the present president Narendra Singh Tomar has been promoted as one of the national general secretaries. He said the party president told Chauhan that the new state president would be considered only after the party is through its present mobilisation for the anti-price rise march to Parliament on April 21.