I was in love with Govindacharya, says Uma

I was in love with Govindacharya, says Uma
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NEW DELHI, OCTOBER 9: Former Union Minister Uma Bharti has been quoted as saying that she was in love with her senior party colleague, K N Govindacharya, and wished to marry him.

``Yes, I was in love with him. I wanted to marry him. I used to chase him everywhere and I feel that he also loved me though he never told me so,'' Bharti has been quoted as saying by the weekly, The Week, in its latest issue.

Although Govindacharya never told her about his love, he had revealed his feelings to party leader L K Advani and former RSS supremo Bhau Rao Devras, Bharti was quoted as saying. ``Bhau Rao advised me that I should not marry for the sake of the masses and the country. So I gave up the idea,'' she said.

Asked whether she ever had a crush on anybody before taking sanyas at the age of 16, Bharti said, ``yes, many. Now all those people are happily married. I am not going to name them. All of them were elite. I was an innocent flirt.''

Denying that she was highly ambitious, she said if that was so she would not have quit her ministerial post. ``There are more ambitious people in the party than me. I am not happy with the way the media has portrayed me. I am a 24-carat person.''

Asked why she chose to live in self-imposed exile at Kedarnath, Bharti said she wanted to run away from the crowd and was also in search of a place where she could think and rethink.

Replying to a question about her major wish in life, Bharti said, ``I want to spend time in a small house by the side of a river with dogs, cows and birds. I like the company of animals and birds. I should also have a Maruti.''

Back in Delhi, Uma has, however, denied having given any interview to The Week at Kedarnath. ``Two journalists, including the one from The Week, who had accompanied ace shooter Jaspal Rana to Kedarnath, were among a dozen persons chatting with me informally about my personal life and the reasons for taking sanyas. But I never said the things which have been attributed to me by the magazine,'' she told reporters today.