New Delhi, Sep 25 (IANS) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Saturday refused to comment on the possibility of former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti returning to the party fold, saying she accompanied veteran L.K. Advani to Somnath to visit the temple.

Responding to questions on speculation about Uma Bharti’s return to the party, tiggered by her accompanying Advani to the Somnath temple, BJP spokesman Prakash Javadekar said: ‘Speculation is speculation’.

‘No comments,’ he said to persistent queries about her return.

Javadekar said Advani had told mediapersons at the Somnath temple that Uma Bharti had expressed a desire to come with him.

He has been visiting the temple every year since 1990 when he launched his rath yatra (chariot procession) to Ayodhya from Somnath.

Uma Bharti was expelled from the BJP in December 2005. She later floated her own Bharatiya Janshakti Party but resigned from it earlier this year after the party’s drubbing in the state assembly elections.

Speculations over her return to the BJP have been rife since former external affairs minister Jaswant Singh’s re-induction into the party. However, BJP leaders said several leaders in Madhya Pradesh were opposed to the idea.