In 1920s, the erudite Moti Lal Nehru while cross-examining a military officer at the High Court of Allahabad countered the witness who asked him: "Do you think me to be a fool?".
The lawyer known for his sharp wit replied: "Of course no, but perhaps I may be mistaken."
At the 150-year-old Allahabad High Court these stories are now a part of legends. Sometimes they are presented as historical facts sometimes as folklores.
That's the irony and also the biggest celebration of Allahabad where history and mythology are often presented as interchangeable.
Historian S Irfan Habib cites that to be the reason for the BJP to choose Allahabad for its all-important two-day National Executive meet.
"Varanasi has already been exploited by the BJP, Allahabad is another historical city which has a place in the Hindu imagination. It's also a calculated move of using religion in a different way. A lot of mythic facts have been flaunted as history by the BJP recently," he says.
He further elaborates that Allahabad fits in the larger narrative of the "BJP as it is trying to write a new history, create new icons and dismantle old historical characters".
It might have been be a Congress citadel of political thoughts during the freedom struggle and Nehru's home but the BJP leaders cite the role of Bharat Ratna Purshottam Das Tandon.
Tandon represented Allahabad in All India Congress Committee and was a freedom fighter who was muscled out by Nehru from the presidency of the Congress party.
Uttar Pradesh watcher Sharat Pradhan sees neither a Hindutva linkage to the BJP move nor the fact that it is the home of Nehru. He cites a more localised reason behind the move.
Phulpur comes under Allahabad and is the constituency of the new UP BJP chief Keshav Prasad Maurya. The choice of venue is on the plea of Maurya who has no political profile. It will help build a bigger profile for Maurya and a chance to him to prove his base, Pradhan says.
BJP's Bhojan with Dalit?
The BJP vehemently dismisses any comparison between party president Amit Shah's photo opportunity of having a meal at a Dalit home in Varanasi recently to that of the Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi's similar outreach programmes.
In 2009, Rahul had also tried to show the 'real India' to British foreign secretary David Miliband, when he took him for a night stay at a Dalit woman's house in Simara village in Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP says that such meals are a part of the RSS tradition and an exercise that party leaders and MPs undertake regularly.
Sources say the leadership clearly understands that its strategy of Hindu consolidation took BJP to 71 seats in 2014 Lok Sabha elections and reduced the Dalit champion Mayawati to a cipher.
The decision of replacing a Brahmin Laxminkant Bajpai with an OBC Keshav Prasad Maurya as UP unit chief was part of this strategy. For 13 years BJP has had Brahmins as party presidents.
It's focus on backward caste can also be ascertained from the list of newly elected 51 district presidents which includes 20 OBCs. The party knows that in order to tap in to the UP Brahmins who are at crossroads, the party will have to project a bouquet of leadership to cater to each caste constituency.
The reason why the Prime Minister chose to do his second anniversary celebration rally in Saharanpur, a BSP bastion, was to create a dent into Mayawati's votebase. There is an understanding that repeating the Lok Sabha script in an assembly election maybe tough.
The BJP president though chose to clearly state that their challenger in the state is the ruling Samajwadi Party and not the BSP.
SP's governance record
The BJP national executive will take up the issue of deteriorating law and order situation in Uttar Pradesh particularly in the backdrop of Mathura incident.
Party leader from Mathura and national secretary Shrikant Sharma says, "Land mafias enjoying the patronage of Samajwadi Party leadership are thriving in each and every district of Uttar Pradesh."
In the run up to the elections this handicap of Akhilesh Yadav will be harped on to by the BJP which will project itself as an alternative, flaunting the governance record in other BJP-ruled states.
"Is Akhilesh Yadav really in charge of Uttar Pradesh? Hasn't the Mathura episode clearly shown that the young Yadav is a merely a puppet while the strings are very much with the father and uncles," says a state BJP leader when asked about the law and order.
The CM question
The BJP national executive though will steer clear of any discussion on a CM candidate, with top party sources highlighting that it's the parliamentary board and not national executive that's the right forum to discuss and take a call.
The party though says that projecting a CM candidate in Sarbanand Sonowal may have worked in Assam but there is another successful model of Haryana when the BJP went into the elections without declaring a CM face.
A number of recent surveys may have put Varun Gandhi as a popular face but his uncomfortable equation with senior leadership may prove to be a spanner in the wheel.
They add that in case the Ram Mandir issue comes up then a strong OBC face can counter the argument of exclusion of lower castes and can lead to greater Hindu consolidation.
Allahabad, Triveni (place of three rivers), Prayag (highest place of sacrifice), Illahabas (Place of Illaha), call what you may depending on which chapter of history you want to delve in, is a city that has been the heart and mind of the freedom movement, as the political thought of the Congress emerged here.
But now the city will witness a watershed moment in its own history barely five km from Nehru's residence Ananda Bhawan at KP College ground where the BJP will writes it own chronicle.
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