From November 16, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani are scheduled to address at least two poll meetings each in Delhi. The Delhi BJP, which is facing rampant rebellion mainly from RSS and mandal-level workers in several constituencies, today threatened the dissidents with serious disciplinary action.

The chairman of the campaign committee, Vijay Kumar Malhotra, said, ``We have issued a directive to all party workers that anyone canvassing for rebel candidates will be expelled from the party for six years.'' But, much like the Congress, the BJP is not disclosing the actual number of dissidents.

Nine rebels who have been persuaded to withdraw their candidature were officially identified as Satpal Kherwer (Vishnu Garden), Shyam Sunder(Nand Nagari), Niranjan Sharma (Jahangirpur), Rampal Tyagi, S N Dang (Tilaknagar), Satyaprakash, Mohanlal, Rajesh Gupta (Sadar), Ashwini Kumar (Hauz Khas).

However, Inder Raj Singh (Narela) and Jagdish Batra (Kasturba Nagar), both MLAs in the outgoing Assembly, and Suresh Gupta (Kamala Nagar) have refused to retire from the contest. Party state unit chief Mange Ram Garg said it is getting increasingly difficult to get in touch with the dissident members.

While the Congress is bringing out its manifesto tomorrow, the BJP manifesto for the November 25 elections will only be out on November 12 or 13 as it is still with the printers, said Malhotra.

But with the Election Commission's strict restrictions on use of banners and posters and loudspeakers, the first day of the formal campaigning for the 818 candidates in the fray for 70 seats began on a low-key today.