Whether there were fireworks on streets of Pakistan or not on the occasion of prime minister Narendra Modi’s surprise stop-over trip to Islamabad and Lahore one thing is clear: the sudden visit has certainly pushed the Kirti Azad episode out of limelight.

On Friday evening none of the television channel debated the DDCA issue, which has been embarrassing the ruling BJP for last many days. The following morning all the newspapers carried the visit as front-page lead story with photographs.

Kirti Azad issue was not totally blacked out, but the stories were pushed into the inside pages in several dailies. The reaction of senior leaders of Marg Darshak Mandal could not get as much coverage as it deserved.

The suspended BJP MP, who once guided India to a dramatic victory in a One-Day International match against Pakistan way back in 1980s––and that too in the same Firoze Shah Kotla ground––was today bowled by the cross-bordere diplomacy of the prime minister.

Kirti knows that anti-Pakistan passion whipped up by the BJP bigwigs did play some role in ensuring his victory from Darbhanga in Bihar in the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

He is well-aware that more fire-crackers were burst on November 8 in Bihar than in Pakistan––no not because of Diwali, but because of the humiliating defeat of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.

Unlike in One-Day Internationals, in Test cricket, which Kirti played with little success, there is always a possibility of second innings unless the follow-on is enforced.

He can wait for second innings to launch another campaign against Arun Jaitley. Mark it the Union finance minister unsuccessfully contested the last year Lok Sabha election from Amritsar, the ancestral home of present Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, for whose birthday Narendra Modi made a brief visit to Pakistan. 

It would not be appropriate to suggest that Narendra Modi’s sudden trip to Pakistan at this stage has something to do with the domestic politics as foreign policy is a different ballgame. But the Kirti Azad camp within the BJP is certainly sulking as it has been deprived of the opportunity to further corner Arun Jaitley.

The problem with Kirti is that apart from those in Marg Darshak Mandal, Shatrughan Sinha is the only party MP, who had openly come out in his favour. Sinha, a good friend of the late Pakistani president, General Zia-ul-Haque, is also from Bihar.

Though Kirti once performed very well with his bat to snatch victory from the jaw of defeat against Pakistan, he was actually an all-rounder, who could not excel with the ball. It is upto him to give a new spin to the whole campaign against Jaitley. If not his crusade against corruption, as he calls it, would soon be a forgotten story. Like the Lalitgate and IPL issues it would surface in the media occasionally without creating any political ripple.

Thus Arun Jaitley may survive once again. Kirti Azad, his band of ex-cricketers like Bishen Singh Bedi, Madan lal, Surendra Khanna etc, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and the Congress may be left high and dry.