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BJP : Post-poll pangs, reshuffle in offing |
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Even as the BJP declared that M. Venkaiah Naidu will stay as its president, the party is set for a large-scale organisational reshuffle aimed at weeding out the deadwood and non-performing office-bearers. Senior leaders L.K. Advani and Jaswant Singh are likely to be leaders of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha respectively. The leaders tipped for appointment to key party positions include Kalyan Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Rajnath Singh, Ananth Kumar, Babulal Marandi and Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Party sources said all important posts would now go to their natural contenders. Of the five general secretaries, three - Pramod Mahajan, Sanjay Joshi and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi - are likely to continue. Mahajan is among party strategists and Joshi is on deputation from the RSS. Naqvi, apart from being a Muslim, enjoys Naidu’s confidence. Anita Arya faces the axe, while the Shivraj Singh Chauhan’s future is uncertain. Senior leaders met at the residence of Vajpayee to discuss the organisational overhaul. The meeting was attended by Vajpayee, Advani, Jaswant Singh, Naidu, Swaraj, Mahajan and Jaitley. After the meeting, Naqvi said: “Naidu is an elected party president. He will continue in his post.”
Sources said that Naidu had in fact suggested to Advani that he step down following the poll debacle. However, Advani shot down the suggestion because once the party chief resigned, then there had to be a chain reaction and saw no end to resignations.
Organisational elections are yet to be completed in UP, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Delhi among other states. In UP and Gujarat, only the presidents have to be elected - Kalyan Singh may replace Vinay Katiyar as unit president. Karnataka BJP chief Ananth Kumar may be shifted to national-level politics.
Outgoing Prime Minister Vajpayee has made up his mind that he will not be the Leader of Opposition. Sources said Vajpayee is inclined to be an “elder statesman’ rather than get involved in daily thrust and parry of Parliamentary politics. This means that Vajpayee will be the Chairman of the BJP Parliamentary Party and also head the NDA coalition. However, Vajpayee will not go into semi-retirement, but will be in “active politics.” Yet he does not want a role where he is involved in actively attacking the ruling Congress-led coalition but someone who gives broad strategic directions to the BJP.
Sources said Vajpayee’s silence over the campaign against Sonia Gandhi’s “foreign origin” is an indication of his preference to avoid making any direct political statements. He is said to have disapproved of the posturing done by Sushma Swaraj and Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Uma Bharati. It is learnt that Vajpayee feels that Uma, Sushma and other BJP leaders went overboard on the “foreigner issue.”
Rift over “foreign origin” issue
Meanwhile, differences have cropped up within the National Democratic Alliance over the raking up of the issue of the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin. It is learnt that some members of the allied parties would have defied the Bharatiya Janata Party and attended the oath-taking ceremony even if Ms. Gandhi were to become the Prime Minister. Some BJP leaders like Sushma Swaraj had met the president to protest the possibility of Sonia taking over as Prime Minister. Later, Rashtrapati Bhavan was constrained to issue a communiqui which said: “It has been reported in a section of the press that the President, Dr. Kalam, had discussed the citizenship issue with Ms. Sonia Gandhi when she met him at Rashtrapati Bhavan. This is contrary to facts. It did not figure in the discussions at all.”
However, some of the allies said that Ms. Gandhi’s foreign origin was a non-issue and should be dropped. According to them, the Congress had won the people’s mandate and it was up to the party who it elected as its leader. They argued that Ms. Gandhi had been given legitimacy by the NDA Government as the Leader of the Opposition and that she was consulted on several issues of national importance. Moreover, they questioned senior BJP leaders on why they did not take any constitutional measure on debarring persons of foreign origin from high constitutional posts when a Constitution Review Commission was set up.
Though leaders of the Sangh Parivar (RSS family), including the aggressive anti-Sonia Gandhi campaigners such as K.N. Govindacharya and Sushma Swaraj, have said that they were happy with the Congress President’s decision to back out of the prime ministership, the debate within the Sangh Parivar on the developments is, surprisingly, not upbeat. Several Sangh Parivar activists are downcast at the turn of events. Many of them admitted that Ms. Gandhi had, in one stroke, divested them of a major campaign issue that could have benefited the Hindutva (Hindu chauvinism) combine for a long time. The Sangh Parivar had also calculated that the theatrical performances of Ms. Swaraj - the threat to resign from the Rajya Sabha, tonsure her head, sleep on the floor, etc., - would also have a telling impact on the average Hindu mindset.
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