BJP leaders Kiran Bedi and Harsh Vardhan during a public meeting in Krishna Nagar today.
Kiran Bedi and Harsh Vardhan, the BJP's current and past chief ministerial faces in Delhi, today made a joint appearance and praised each other as they tried to counter reports of a serious divide.
"I too wanted Harsh Vardhan to be chief minister in 2013, but the mistakes of last time meant he couldn't," Ms Bedi said at a public meeting in Krishna Nagar in east Delhi, with the BJP leader, now union minister, by her side.
Krishna Nagar was Dr Vardhan's assembly constituency before he contested and won last year's national election.
"Had he been chief minister, Delhi would have progressed tremendously," added the 65-year-old former police officer, who was named by the BJP as its chief ministerial candidate just days after she joined the party as well as politics.
The show of unity came on a day the BJP confronted anger in its ranks over Ms Bedi's sudden elevation. Protests by supporters of Satish Upadhyay, the party's Delhi chief, turned violent this evening and the police had to be called in.
Harsh Vardhan has been conspicuously detached from the Delhi campaign. He is reportedly upset that Kiran Bedi left without meeting him on Sunday, when she had invited him and other BJP MPs from Delhi to her residence for tea.
Dr Vardhan was the BJP's candidate for the top post in the elections held in December 2013, which threw up a fractured verdict. He was promoted to the central government as union health minister but a few months later, he was shifted to the science and technology ministry, leading to speculation that he was being given a lighter charge to help him shift focus back to Delhi.
Harsh Vardhan, however, has not been assigned any role for the February 7 polls.