In the coming weeks, Praveen Togadia is likely to become even more of a TV personality than he is. In his three years as its international general secretary, the VHP has grown from 14,000 to 38,000 units nationwide. The real goal, he says, is to replicate the "Gujarat model" across the country. The VHP's social penetration in Gujarat was as evident in the relief and rehabilitation measures after the Gujarat earthquake of January 2001 as in the post-Godhra massacres of February-March 2002.

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BJP Saffron Quicksand MEN OF THE MOMENT Ramchandra Das Paramhans Sorabjee: Fall Guy GUEST COLUMNS G.M.Banatwalla Tarun Vijay Prakash Karat

Born into a family of Patel farmers from Saurashtra, Togadia spent his school years living alone in an Ahmedabad chawl. Academically brilliant, Togadia was a favourite of his school principal. The kindly Rameshwar Paliwal, an RSS pracharak, began the young boy's lifelong association with the Sangh.

Togadia gave up an appreciable practice as a cancer surgeon to become the face of the VHP's generational shift from the Ashok Singhal era. Now he insists, "Indian society urgently needs radical surgery." By the looks of it, he is holding the scalpel.

-Uday Mahurkar

HOLY DREAM: Mahant Paramhans

You could say he builds castles. Well, almost. Only that he prefers to build them on earth. Mahant Ramchandra Das Paramhans dreams, and interprets them too. Like in 1949 when Ram Lalla "ordered" him to construct a temple at His janmasthan. Or, when two days before the March 13 Supreme Court directive, He commanded him to "donate all the stones meant for the temple construction". Dreams compel him, dreams influence him (as also his followers). Luckily for him, dreams also get radically affected by the changes in the litigation process.

The mahant of the Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas is not sure about his age. Maybe 92, "it is the same as my friend Satyanarain". He spent his childhood in Singhipur near Patna till 1939 when Lord Rama "beckoned" him to Ayodhya. His was the first petition on the dispute.

Paramhans is most comfortable in front of TV cameras. But he knows this wouldn't have been possible without his dreams. Only that, at times they turn into nightmares in distant Godhra, Mumbai or Bhopal.

-Neeraj Mishra

It's not unusual for a litigant to blame his misfortune on his lawyer; it is certainly rare for the lawyer to readily agree. That, however, is what Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee insisted after a storm over the Government's plea before the apex court to permit a symbolic puja in Ayodhya. "I wasn't airing anyone's view-neither the Government's nor the VHP's," he said.

Did Sorabjee set himself up as the fall guy? The Government's position was discussed in a meeting of A.B. Vajpayee, L.K. Advani, Arun Jaitley, Pramod Mahajan and Sorabjee on March 10. The strategy was finalised on March 13 on the basis of Jaitley's opinion that the 1994 Supreme Court judgement put no restrictions on the subsequent use of the undisputed land in Ayodhya, including reverting it to the original Hindu owner. The puja was only a formality. Everyone agreed, except Mahajan.

Vajpayee consulted neither the Cabinet nor the NDA before agreeing to the puja. It was a major lapse and could have triggered a crisis. That's when the lawyer protected his client by offering his own head.