|
BJP : Rajnath Singh set to be next president |
 |
Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Rajnath Singh is tipped to take over as BJP president this week when L.K. Advani quits the post immediately after the five-day silver jubilee party conclave in Mumbai, starting today (Dec. 26).
The need to focus on the Hindi heartland, especially Uttar Pradesh, appears to have favoured Rajnath Singh’s candidature. BJP’s formidable voter support base in Uttar Pradesh has virtually disappeared in the last five years. Rajnath Singh’s prospects brightened after the RSS leadership reportedly ruled out aspirants like Murli Manohar Joshi on the grounds of age. The RSS stress on ideology also appears to have worked to his advantage.
Reports say that RSS chief K.S. Sudarshan and other RSS bigwigs like Mohan Bhagwat and Suresh Soni discussed the matter with BJP leaders.
Aligned with the Sangh since his student days, Singh rose quite fast in the ranks because of a combination of organizational skills and facility with Hindi.
He made a mark for himself as the Education Minister under Kalyan Singh by coming down hard on the malaise of cheating in exams, a measure that led the aggrieved to work for his defeat in the Assembly elections, but earned him goodwill across the state.
Though no formal announcement on the new President has been made, party sources said that consultations were over. The choice had been made and Rajnath Singh’s name had received RSS approval. Party leaders say that the announcement is being withheld as the BJP did not want any distraction from the Mumbai conclave marking its silver jubilee.
Observers say that the countdown for the old guard in the BJP began almost a year back when RSS chief Sudarshan said in a televised interview that it was time for the aged BJP leadership to make way for the next generation.
Murli Manohar Joshi may have made it, but perhaps the need to give the BJP a younger look came in the way though, from the view point of the RSS, he was the man who would have furthered its ideology. On Saturday, Dec. 24, Dr. Joshi became the first senior leader to publicly congratulate Rajnath Singh.
It became clear quite early in the battle for succession that Advani would not have his way in the selection of his successor. For the last several weeks, the Advani group had been pushing for M. Venkaiah Naidu becoming president again. When he quit the post after the defeat of the party in the May 2004 Lok Sabha elections, Naidu said he was resigning for personal reasons.
Naidu had been claiming that he emerged as the consensus candidate and was asked to take over as party chief when Advani resigned. But other senior leaders refused to confirm this claim.
Party sources pointed out that former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee could not have gone along with that choice. Naidu had angered him, trying to project a “twin leadership” for the 2004 Lok Sabha polls describing Vajpayee as Vikas Purush, (Development Man) and Advani as Loh Purush (Iron man)
He was also the messenger to Vajpayee, asking him to vacate the Prime Minister’s seat to become President when K.R. Narayanan’s term ended.
Sushma Swaraj, BJP deputy leader in the Rajya Sabha was a contender for president, but her equations with Vajpayee were never stable. Moreover, she is not from the RSS stables.
General secretary Pramod Mahajan has recently fallen out of favour with the RSS.
As for Arun Jaitley, another general secretary, one view is that he has yet to familiarise himself with the party machine at the grassroots. However, there is no denying the fact that the Madhya Pradesh elections in December 2003 and, more importantly, the Bihar polls this year were won with him as the man in-charge of strategy and overall planning.
Rajnath Singh met Vajpayee on Saturday, Dec. 24. The former Prime Minister is understood to have briefed him on the party’s expectations under his leadership.
|
