New Delhi, May 10: Uma Bharti has redrawn her political strategy as her prospects of returning to the BJP look dim.

Last month, L.K. Advani spoke against her proposed comeback, ruling that if she returned she would have to “completely forget Madhya Pradesh and agree to contest the next Lok Sabha elections from Uttar Pradesh”.

But Uma now plans to contest all Assembly and Lok Sabha seats in Madhya Pradesh, where a BJP government led by Shivraj Singh Chauhan is in power.

She will also field her Bharatiya Janshakti Party candidates from many seats in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, two other BJP-ruled states going to the polls later this year.

Uma disagreed that her outfit was in tatters. “We are getting lakhs of votes everywhere. Let the elections come and people will show who is what in Madhya Pradesh,” she said.

She denied the possibility of joining hands with the BJP since “throwing out the corrupt Shivraj Singh Chauhan government is the first priority”.

Uma has begun working on her poll agenda by trying to polarise voters on caste lines.

Right from the beginning, she has been a supporter of the OBC sub-quota in the women’s reservation bill and smelt a conspiracy against backward and Dalit women. She said: “These pro-rich women in the BJP, the Congress and the Left have plotted this. I will not allow it to succeed.”

So, she will launch an agitation against the bill, which was introduced this week in the Rajya Sabha. “I will meet Sharad Yadav, Nitish Kumar, Mulayam Singh and Lalu Yadav to launch a nationwide agitation,” she said.

Such meetings may not create common ground as these leaders are opposed to Uma’s politics but the sanyasin is trying to bolster her caste equations before the next round of electoral battles.

Uma’s decision to fight the BJP has delighted the Congress. Nobody expects her to sweep the polls, but Uma remains a force to reckon with in Madhya Pradesh and will definitely take away chunks of the BJP’s votes in parts of the state.

The BJP understands her potential to harm its chances but the equations in the party do not allow her return at this stage. While Chauhan is opposed to her return because of personal ambitions, Arun Jaitley, M. Venkaiah Naidu and Sushma Swaraj dislike her temperamental outbursts.