When he was told that most people believed that Sinha and Shourie had been sidelined because of their dissent, Sinha shrugged: 'I cannot help the interpretation.'

More recently, Sinha voiced displeasure vis-a-vis the party leadership for not asking him to initiate the discussion on the budget in the Lok Sabha although he had presented five budgets as India's finance minister.

Sinha gave an interview to a newspaper even after party president Rajnath Singh advised leaders not to air their grievances in public.

Shourie refused to speak on the issue. 'I don't want to speak on party matters,' Shourie told IANS, when asked for his reaction on why he has not been invited to the meeting.

Shourie had in a series of articles in a newspaper said tht the party had been virtually taken over by 'certain leaders and their henchmen'. Most people interpreted his comments as an attack on Arun Jaitley.

Shourie wrote: 'These henchmen become the leader's eyes and ears... They feast off him when he is in office. They dissuade him from quitting when he clearly should.'

Jaitley said in a television interview last week that he alone could not be blamed for the poll debacle.

Senior party leader Sushma Swaraj, however, told IANS that the issues raised by both Sinha and Shourie would be discussed during the meeting in Shimla.