Signs are increasing that former MK Aryeh Deri is on the verge of returning to lead the Shas party, just two weeks after he handed in his resignation from the Knesset.

The latest sign came Sunday in the form of a letter to Deri authored by Rabbi Shalom Cohen, head of the Shas Council of Torah Sages, in which he instructs Deri to return and lead the party.

Deri resigned from Shas and from the Knesset after recordings revealed that Shas’s late spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef of blessed memory, strongly condemned and opposed him.

In the recordings, Rabbi Yosef was seen in private meetings condemning Deri for his corruption that had him jailed in 1999 and explaining he didn’t want to reappoint him as head of Shas in place of Eli Yishai – and even going as far as to refer to him as “evil.”

Another recording revealed that Deri and not Rabbi Yosef was responsible for Shas’s shift to the left and support for the 1993 Oslo Accords.

In Sunday’s letter to Deri, Rabbi Cohen wrote, “You do not have any permission to leave. I instruct you to return and lead the movement.”

Rabbi Cohen added that should Deri return to lead Shas, he will receive many blessings.

Several weeks ago, when Deri announced plans to resign from the Shas leadership, the Council of Torah Sages rejected his request to do so. At the time, Deri said he was “determined” to resign.

Recently, however, he has been singing a different tune. In a television interview last week, Deri did not say outright that he would return to Shas, but hinted that he would when he said that “a person who refuses to change his mind is not a person, he’s a donkey.”

“I do not know yet if I will return, that’s the truth,” Deri said. “A person who doesn’t change his mind or is not willing to hear other opinions is not a person, he is a donkey.”

Meanwhile, a poll published last Friday by the Maariv-Sofhashavua newspaper found that Shas would win six seats if elections were held today, one more seat than a poll two days earlier had given the party.