Friday, December 30 2005 10:11 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Mumbai: Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's announcement to bow out of politics was greeted by a stunned silence and disbelief from senior party leaders.

The mood at the Rajat Jayanti Nagar, venue of the party's silver jubilee gathering, last night (Dec 29, 2005) turned a bit cold and it was not all due to the weather.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President L K Advani said Vajpayee had taken the decision last morning. "I came to know of his decision (to retire from electoral politics) only in the morning," Advani told reporters here last night.

Pramod Mahajan, the Laxman in the Ram-Laxman thus described by Vajpayee, chose to remain silent despite repeated attempts to elicit a reaction. "Anything I speak now will be taken with a different interpretation," he said.

Former UP Chief Minister Kalyan Singh said he would not like to comment as this was a matter concerning bade log (big people). "I am a small soldier of the party. How can I comment on this issue," he told sources.

His party colleague Kalraj Mishra said he would first like to ascertain the factors that led Vajpayee to make this announcement. "I will first see the background that led to him saying what he did last night," Mishra told sources.

With no senior party leader coming forward to give his take on Vajpayee's stunner of an announcement, it was left to the delegates, who had begun trooping to the venue from the public rally at Shivaji Park, to decipher the significance of the former PM's momentous declaration.