Party spokesperson Prakash Jawdekar said it was highly unfair for Azad to have dragged the prime minister's adopted daughter and her husband into the election propaganda. ``What a lot of anguish Azad's remarks must have caused the natural parents of the lady in question, and their grand-daughter, one can well imagine,'' Jawdekar said.

Going on the offensive, today the BJP retorted to the Congress poll adverstisement which poses the question to the BJP about its alleged silence when the Shiv Sena indulged in acts of violence, etc. Jawdekar said it was the Congress candidate from Mumbai North-West, Sunil Dutt who had welcomed Kashi Pashi, allegedly connected to the Chota Rajan gang,into the Congress very recently. The police recently also arrested Kashi Pashi.

Asked to comment on former social welfare minister Babanrao Gholap's charge that he was arrested at the instance of home minsiter Gopinath Munde, and on the timing of the arrest, Jawdekar said the police had taken an independent decision on the arrest. He said, in fact, ``Wasn't it remarkable that a minsiter who was formerly in our cabinet was arrested close to an election?'', implying that the BJP-Sena paid no heed to the effect it would have on electioneering.

The BJP's South Mumbai unit also today went on the offensive alleging that there was a likelihood of bogus voting in several booths of Umerkhadi, Khetwadi and Mumbadevi. The party's candidate for the Lok Sabha, Jaywantiben Mehta, who addressed the press in the afternoon, also said she had given a list of the suspect booths to the Chief Electoral Officer, and the police commissioner of Mumbai.

She demanded that video cameras be used by the EC in these booths to deterbogus voters from playing their part. She also said the euphemism for the money that is spent on such bogus voters is ``Gandhiji'', which unfortunately, can be linked to Rs 500, 100 and 10 rupee notes.

The party's assembly candidate from Mumbadevi constituency and Maharasthra housing minister Raj K Purohit alleged that the Congress Lok Sabha candidate Murli Deora was indulging in lies on the Rent Act amendment, and that a seminar organised tomorrow in the K C College auditorium was nothing but a political meeting for Deora. He said that the expenses on the seminar, to be convened by one Anil Goenka, should be counted as Deora's poll expenses.

He said he challenged Deora to invite him to the seminar if it was genuinely an academic seminar on the Rent Act.

Jaywantiben also said that Deora and his cohorts had been accusing her and Raj Purohit of being `dalals' (agents) of landlords. She said nothing could be far from the truth. The reference made by the Congressmen was allegedly to the BJP's office in 207,Kalbadevi Road. Jaywantiben clarified that the BJP had got that office from the erstwhile Jan Sangh, which has its office there.

She said one Govindraj Pithi, who was earlier a Congressman, and had then joined the Hindu Mahasabha had given the office to the Jan Sangh in 1952. The office remained the office of the Jan Sangh ever since, and when the building was rebuilt many years later, the BJP was accommodated as other tenants were, in the new premises.

On the allegation of being `dalals' Raj Purohit had this to say: ``Only a `bevda' can call us thus.'' (Of course, he said to amused journalists, ``Mind you, I have not called anybody a bevda.''