Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his deputy Lal Kishenchand Advani are extremely displeased with Bharatiya Janata Party chief Venkaiah Naidu for unnecessarily raking up the twin electoral mascot issue, a senior party leader said on Friday.

He told reporters during an informal chat that the issue was likely to figure at the three-day 'chintan baithak' (brainstorming  session) of the BJP near Mumbai from June 18 to 20.

Naidu had triggered a crisis in the party when he said recently that both Vajpayee and Advani  would be projected equally in the 2004 general election -- Vajpayee as 'vikas purush' (an icon of development) and Advani as 'lauh purush ' (iron man).

A day later, Naidu, after being chastened by the prime minister himself, resorted to damage control by saying that Vajpayee was the party's undisputed leader and the lone prime ministerial candidate.

The controversy spurred Union Human Resources Development Minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi to criticise the BJP chief for his indiscretion.

The deputy prime minister himself, during his ongoing US tour, clarified that Vajpayee would be the prime minister for many more years, thereby making Naidu cut a sorry figure.

The BJP leader pointed out that a section of the party leadership is quite cut up with Naidu and he could be in trouble at the Mumbai meet. "If he (Advani) does not defend Naidu, the latter could be in a thick soup," he pointed out.

To make matters worse for the BJP chief, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh too has thrown its weight behind Vajpayee.

The unseemly controversy, meanwhile, has come as a shot in the arm for senior  BJP general secretary Pramod Mahajan, who had been marginalised by the Advani-Naidu combination in the party's affairs.

While Mahajan did reassert himself at the BJP national executive meet in Indore on April 4-5 this year, this could be his real chance to win back his position in the party.

BJP sources told rediff.com that the perceptible ascendancy of the Advani-Naidu in party affairs had been monitored all along by the prime minister's office.

The sources said it was not unlikely that Vajpayee's followers were instrumental in the political 'reincarnation' of Mahajan.

Mahajan's followers, especially in the BJP state units, now want him to gun for the party's presidentship.

While this may not happen immediately, there is no denying the fact that Mahajan is back in the reckoning. The Mumbai meet may be just the right stage for him to announce this to the world.