Bansal's nomination, who is the general secretary BJP small-scale industry, led to a mini revolt in the Shalimar Bagh constituency with four senior BJP activists resigning in protest and filing nominations as independents.

Sahib Singh had gone underground for a couple of days to ensure that his man gets the coveted Shalimar Bagh seat which he is vacating. But the rank and file protested against his arm-twisting methods. In fact to stymie the revolt, the party leadership delayed the candidate announcement till the last minute. But to little effect.

All the protesting veteran leaders of the constituency resigned and filed joint nominations with an understanding of withdrawing in favour of one of them.

The resignation which has shocked the BJP circles most was that of Tilak Raj Kataria an RSS Pracharak for 21 years. The others are Shalimar Bagh mandal vice-president Brij Mohan Wig, Sangh Adhikar Krishna Kumar Aggarwal and VHP activist J.P. Kapoor.

But these were not all, the already divided house of BJP Delhi unit was in for another shock. Entire teams of office-bearers of Pitampura also joined in and resigned en masse.

Sahib Singh's position of power with huge a vote-bank following his sudden seems to have eroded considerably. A senior party leader said: ``Sahib Singh seems to have ended up on a weak wicket. He overplayed his Jat card and is yet to learn the subtle ropes of politics. Khurana strategically blocked the entry of the Akali Dal (Badal), but Chautala -- who can rival Sahib Singh's base -- walked off with three seats.'' Despite strong resistance from the Sahib Singh camp, Om Prakash Chautala's Haryana Lok Dal not only entered the fray but got three plum outer Delhi seats. And Madan Lal Khurana dominated the scene of ticket distribution with Sahib Singh only managing to corner a few seats for his loyalists.