The Hindu : Thakre out, Rajnath, Jaitley emerge as key leaders

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 22, 2002

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Thakre out, Rajnath, Jaitley emerge as key leaders

By Neena Vyas

Rajnath Singh

NEW DELHI JULY 21. The Bharatiya Janata Party president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, has reshuffled portfolios in the party, making this the third major change in work allocation in about two years.

Mr. Naidu has retained the pattern introduced by his predecessor, Jana Krishnamurthi. While Mr. Krishnamurthi had introduced the concept of five "zonal heads" each with several States under them, Mr. Naidu has created a team of six for "political management and social expansion''.

Significantly, the former party president, Kushabhau Thakre, who has been working almost as a proxy party chief after he demitted office, has been given no responsibility at all. This has triggered speculation that the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, has forced Mr. Thakre's ouster as he had openly changed his allegiance from Mr. Advani to the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, during his stewardship of the party.

As part of the team of six, Rajnath Singh, former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and now party general-secretary, has been given the overall charge of the three Hindi heartland States — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar — along with the new States of Uttaranchal, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand carved out of these three, besides Haryana, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.

Another general secretary, Arun Jaitley, has been given the important States of Gujarat, Delhi, Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh (all four will be going to the polls between now and next year) as well as Maharashtra, Goa, Chandigarh and the four Southern States — Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka — although he has never before done this kind of party work. He will also have more than a finger in the Kashmir pie as the Government interlocutor with the State Government on the issue of autonomy, although a formal notification on this is awaited.

Almost all the States where the BJP has a substantial political base have been shared between Rajnath Singh and Mr. Jaitley. Sanjay Joshi, another general secretary, continues as before to be in-charge of organisational affairs.

The other three in this team are the BJP vice-president, Pyarelal Khandelwal, who has been given the eastern zone comprising Orissa, Assam, West Bengal and the North-East; the newly-elevated general secretary, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, put in charge of party headquarters, programme planning, co-ordination with States, grievances and minority affairs; and the only woman general secretary, Anita Arya, who will handle the women, the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes `morchas'.

Mr. Naidu has also placed the responsibility of political affairs in each of the States on the shoulders of individual party leaders — Kalraj Mishra, till recently the U.P. unit president, will be the `prabhari' for U.P.; Om Mathur for Madhya Pradesh; Ramdas Aggarwal for Gujarat and Rajasthan; Gopinath Munde for Maharashtra; L. Ganesan for Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh; Bal Apte for Karnataka; Padmanabha Acharya for Kerala; and O.P. Kohli for Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

Arun Jaitley

Maya Singh has been made `prabhari' of the party's women's wing and Sunil Shastri of Sikkim. Both are former general secretaries and have been given comparatively unimportant work. Ms. Singh was also closely associated with Mr. Thakre who has been left with no work at all.

Mr. Naidu has not yet indicated whether the economic and foreign affairs cells in the party will be re-organised.

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