Modi elevated; To be BJP's PM face

Anita Saluja New Delhi: Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi has stormed on to the BJP national centrestage. Modi is the lone BJP-ruled State Chief Minister inducted into BJP Parliamentary Board, the highest decision-making body of the party that will chalk-out the roadmap for 2014 elections. His inclusion into the BJP Parliamentary Board is a clear indication that it is Modi, who would lead the party and will be its prime ministerial face. He has also been included in the BJP Central Election Committee that will pick candidates across the country. BJP president Rajnath Singh announced his new team of office-bearers on Sunday that would steer the party in the next Lok Sabha elections. In the days ahead, Modi is all likely to be named Chairman of the BJP Central Campaign Committee that would finally see him standing face-to-face with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi in the contest for the post of Prime Minister. The very fact that no other Chief Minister, except Narendra Modi, has been inducted into the BJP Parliamentary Board, signifies that he is given a special ranking in the party and is not in any way considered to be at par with Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan or Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh. NDA Working Chairman L K Advani was keen on the inclusion of Modi in the BJP Parliamentary Board. Ironically, it was Rajnath Singh, who dropped Modi from the BJP Parliamentary Board during his previous tenure as party president and now he has brought Modi back. Modi's growing influence in the party is evident from the elevation of his favourites in the party hierarchy. The likes of Amit Shah, Varun Gandhi and J P Nadda are general secretaries, while Balbir Punj and Smriti Irani are vice-presidents and Meenakshi Lekhi is the party spokesperson.A Amit Shah, a former Gujarat Home Minister, is the right-hand man of Modi and has been accused in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case. He was holding 10 important portfolios in the Modi Cabinet in 2003. The strong Hindutva stamp on the team is clearly visible as Ram Lal and Murlidhar Rao have been named as general secretaries, besides Amit Shah and Varun Gandhi. Uma Bharati, the firebrand leader and Hindutva face of the party and Prabhat Jha, both from Madhya Pradesh, have been inducted as vice-presidents. Under the leadership of Rajnath Singh, the BJP is all expected to sing the Ram-dhun and rake-up the Hindutva issues in a big way. For Uma Bharati, it will be her resurrection in the party, after being in political hibernation for a long time. Varun Gandhi, the first cousin of Rahul Gandhi, was long-awaited in the office-bearers team of the BJP. His inclusion as general secretary is being seen to give a boost to the campaign in Uttar Pradesh, where Rahul Gandhi has set his sights on improving the tally of the Congress. It will be Varun versus Rahul in UP, while in the rest of the country, it will be Modi versus Rahul.A To queer the pitch for his rivals, Meenakshi Lekhi, one of the hard-core supporters of Modi, has been added to the list of spokespersons. Sudhanshu Trivedi, Vijay Sonkar Shastri and Capt Abhimanyu are the fresh faces, while old faces like Nirmala Sitharaman, Shahnawaz Hussain and Prakash Javadekar will continue as earlier, with the exception of Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who will now serve as General Secretary. No chief spokesperson has been named to replace Ravi Shankar Prasad, who is the Deputy Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha. Focus is on younger faces like Varun Gandhi, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Muralidhar Rao, Dharmendra Pradhan, Ananth Kumar, Thawar Chand Gehlot and Tapir Gaon, who are all general secretaries. Similarly, Saroj Pandey has been named Mahila Morcha president. Surprisingly, there is no woman appointed as general secretary.A In the category of BJP Secretary, Poonam Mahajan, daughter of the late Pramod Mahajan, has been brought in from Maharashtra. Other young faces in that category include Bhupendra Yadav, Vani Tripathi and Rameshwar Chaurasiya. The BJP president also announced the 80-member National Executive which had the names of all those who did not find a place in the team of office bearers. These include Yashwant Sinha, Jaswant Singh, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Najma Heptullah and Hema Malini.

Advani sulks

New Delhi: Nothing can keep L K Advani down, especially when talk of elections is in the air. On Saturday, the day BJP president Rajnath Singh was to name his party's new office-bearers and all eyes were on Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, it was Advani vs the rest of the BJP at its headquarters in the Capital. The old fox did it again: the release of the list of the party's key functionaries who will take it through the next elections, scheduled for Saturday evening, has been put on hold over "some unresolved issues within the party''. The list was, however, announced on Sunday morning. Top party sources confirmed that while BJP president Rajnath Singh gave rising star Narendra Modi his due, Advani bargained hard for accommodating Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan in the party's parliamentary board, at par with Modi. Modi will fill up the vacancy caused by the demise of former Rajya Sabha member and ideologue Bal Apte on July 17 last year. The parliamentary board has a strength of 11, and it may have to be expanded for Chouhan. The big battle of Saturday was over retaining Ananth Kumar as general secretary. A powerful section within the BJP wanted Kumar out; Kumar approached Advani, who dug his heels in. Advani called Nagpur, and Ananth Kumar will now remain a general secretary. Advani also pitched for former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Uma Bharti, former union minister Yashwant Sinha, and Pilibhit MP Varun Gandhi, who also had Rajnath's support.