A closer look at the outcome of the latest fracas caused by the Sena's aggressive opposition to the Pakistani players' presence on the Indian soil reveals an ingenious strategy used by the hardliners in the Sangh Parivar to halt, what they believe to be, Vajpayee's growing tendency to play a pseudo Nehru to project himself as a great liberal vis a vis the minorities.

According to reliable sources, the Sena chief Bal Thackeray's insistence on having Advani in Mumbai for a powwow before calling off his opposition to the Indo-Pak matches wasn't just a personal whim. Both Thackeray and Advani share, not only a warm personal equation, but also the deep-seated aversion for things Pakistani.

It was Advani, backed by the hawks in the Sangh Parivar, who had used the Sena supremo to articulate the saffron hardliners' opposition to the Prime Minister Vajpayee being "extravagantly secular" to the "enemy" from across the border. "Balasaheb (the Sena chiel) willingly played the role of the spoilsport despite his avid interest in cricket and took the brunt of the nation-wide condemnation for spawning violence on the cricket grounds. But he has succeeded in articulating the hardliners' cause.

What Advani and his friends in the Sangh Parivar wanted to say and do, but could not, for obvious reasons,  Balasaheb has done for them," a senior Sena leader confided to the Hindustan Times.

However, if any one had any doubt about the Sangh Parivar gameplan, the Sena supremo cleared it up himself.

Delivering his thanks-giving speech for the birthday bash organised by the Shiv Sainiks on the occasion of his 73rd birthday ... in Mumbai. Thackeray disclosed that his friend Advani was constrained by the office the latter holds and, as such, was not in a position to hit out at the red-carpet being laid out to the citizens of the very country that though t nothing of sending terrorists into India to kill innocent people. "I had to step in, and say and do things that Advaniji could not possibly have because of the office he holds," he said bluntly. ...

Contrary to the general impression in the media and political circles about the Sena chief having suffered a setback when he gave up his opposition to the Indo-Pak issue, the Sena seems to have actually grown its tentacles far outside its home turf of Maharashtra, "Hordes of Shiv Sainiks spring up overnight as far as Delhi, Chennai, Calcutta and even a remote UP town like Muzaffarnagar and risk being crushed by police, without Balasaheb even stirring out of his Mumbai residence. Do you still think the Sena chief has lost out in the latest battle?" asks another Sena leader. (Source: The Hindustan Times, 28 January, 1999)