The Hindu : Mahajan's new job, preparation for Assembly polls?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jan 30, 2003

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National

Mahajan's new job, preparation for Assembly polls?

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JAN 29. The induction of the former Union Minister, Pramod Mahajan, as a key general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party is being seen as the single most important step taken to strengthen the party ahead of the crucial Assembly elections this year and the `mahabharat' of the Lok Sabha elections next year.

Although the formal announcement is expected to be made tomorrow, the party president, Venkaiah Naidu, clearly indicated that Mr. Mahajan would replace Arun Jaitley, who has been reinducted into the Cabinet.

It is also being said that Mr. Jaitley's presence in Government as the Law Minister had become urgent given the fact that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad has already given an ultimatum to the Government to hand over the acquired land in Ayodhya to the VHP-run Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas "by February 22" when a `dharam sansad' is being organised here.

Earlier, as the Law Minister, Mr.Jaitley, had given that opinion that the land can be handed over through an executive order. It will be his job to see how this can be done without coming into conflict with the judiciary.

The BJP is very keen to "do something" on the Ram temple issue ahead of elections to re-kindle a Hindutva wave. And on this issue the entire Sangh Parivar is expected to act unitedly.

Although the timing of the change has given rise to speculation that the top BJP bosses were unhappy with the way the recent stand-off between different operators in the telecommunications sector was handled, there are no two opinions about the usefulness of Mr. Mahajan being able to devote all his energies to party work when elections have to be fought and won.

In fact, some in the party today said that Mr. Mahajan would be a "super prabhari" who will be given overall charge of all States where elections are due.

It is also known that Mr. Mahajan played a significant role in the strategy that helped the party bag all the three by-elections in Rajasthan.

The party's organisational elections are due this year and should be held around August. Already, speculation is that Mr. Mahajan's induction as a BJP general secretary could become a first step towards the party presidentship.

It remains to be seen how Mr. Naidu and Mr. Mahajan function together, for Mr. Mahajan is senior to Mr. Naidu in the party but will now have to work as his general secretary.

The resignation of Uma Bharti, Vasundhara Raje and Raman Singh from the Government was long overdue. The party wants to project Ms. Bharti as its chief ministerial candidate in Madhya Pradesh, Ms. Raje is already president of the BJP's Rajasthan unit and Mr. Raman Singh the party chief in Chhattisgarh.

Some other changes in the Cabinet — the reinduction of C.P. Thakur (Bihar), the bringing in of Sangh Priya Gautam ( a Dalit from Uttar Pradesh) and Jaskaur Meena (a tribal from Madhya Pradesh) — are all calculated to strengthen the party in the States keeping in mind their social base.

The Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, himself signalled today that the major changes in the party and the Government were part of a process on which thinking had started at the Goa national executive committee meeting of the BJP last April when Mr. Mahajan had offered to resign his ministerial assignment to work for the party. In fact, Mr. Advani had then said major changes would be made. For various reasons these were delayed as considerable effort had to be made to "persuade" Ms Bharti and Ms. Raje to give up their ministerial berths.

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