The return of former chief minister Kalyan Singh to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) may now be held up by another week belying expecations of a  Diwali homecoming.   “Kalyan Singh’s meeting with BJP chief Nitin Gadkari hasn’t taken place so far. Though he has met all the other top party leaders from Uttar Pradesh, yet the meeting with Gadkari, who despite the party’s clean chit to him isn’t out of the woods as yet, hasn’t crystallised. After BJP MP Ram Jethamalani, another party member had recently hit out at Gadkari. With the RSS now busy with the BJP chief, party leaders anticipate that Kalyan’s expected re-entry (that too was scripted by the RSS) would take at least a week more.

“It’s still unclear if Gadkari would get a second term. He may or may not. But as far as Kalyan Singhji is concerned, his re-entry is almost certain. The suspense is over the timing of his return,” a senior party leader said.

The leader said, once he re-enters, Kalyan would have a packed schedule with the party expected to exploit the oratory and his pro-Hindutva image to mobilise voters in UP and outside. But the delay notwithstanding, party leaders confess that Kalyan Singh, along with his son Rajvir, is all set to enter the BJP. In fact, state BJP chief Laxmikant Bajpai recently told reporters in Ballia that Kalyan Singh was virtually in the party.

“For all practical purposes, he is in the BJP. Only some formalities remain and they too would be completed shortly,” he had said.

Asked whether he would celebrate Diwali in BJP, Kalyan Singh had told HT that all these things would depend on when he met Gadkari.  “I am practically in the BJP but technically still some formalities need to be completed,” he said.