The Hindu : Venkaiah Naidu all set to take over

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jun 30, 2002

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Venkaiah Naidu all set to take over

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI JUNE 29. Barring a last-minute hitch, the Rural Development Minister, M. Venkaiah Naidu, is all set to take over as president of the Bharatiya Janata Party after Jana Krishnamurthi vacates the post on July 1, the day he will be inducted into the Cabinet.

Mr. Naidu's new team is expected to include the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Rajnath Singh, the Union Law Minister, Arun Jaitley, and the Urban Development Minister, Ananth Kumar. All the three may be inducted as general secretaries.

Apparently, attempts are also being made to get the Sports Minister, Uma Bharti, to take up a senior position in the party headquarters — earlier, she is believed to have refused to go as president of the BJP's Madhya Pradesh unit.

Mr. Krishnamurthi has called a meeting of the party's central office-bearers here on July 1, when he is expected to resign as president. The name of the new party president may be announced simultaneously and ratified by the office-bearers, and later by a meeting of the national executive committee.

Although Mr. Naidu's name has been more or less finalised after several rounds of meeting at the residence of the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, and different other levels, the former BJP president, Kushabhau Thakre, has cautioned that "the name of the new party president will be finally decided only after a meeting tomorrow, by when Mr. Krishnamurthi will be back from Chennai.''

The BJP leaders have said that Mr. Krishnamurthi is unhappy with the choice of his successor, and it seems there is also resistance to Mr. Naidu at other senior levels in the party.

However, Mr. Vajpayee and the Union Home Minister, L. K. Advani, seem to have zeroed in on Mr. Naidu. Some party insiders, in fact, believe that the other names in the reckoning — Pramod Mahajan and Sushma Swaraj — did not find favour with the two most powerful men in the party for reasons other than competence and ability. Mr. Naidu has all along kept himself on the right side of the Prime Minister and the Home Minister.

The revamp effort in the BJP is being made with an eye on Assembly polls next year and the run-up to the Lok Sabha election the year after. The party leaders said that it was absolutely necessary for the BJP to be able to win in one or two States next year, when Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Delhi, among 10 other States, go to the polls. The attempt will be to give the party a younger look.

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