Click to play videoNew Delhi: The BJP has cut down Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to size. In a reshuffle of the party’s senior leadership, Modi been dropped from the Central Parliamentary Board.
Party president Rajnath Singh has also replaced General Secretary Sanjay Joshi (Organisation) with Ramlal Agarwal. CNN-IBN’s Political Editor Diptosh Majumdar says that people will read a lot of politics in Modi’s removal.
The BJP’s Central Parliamentary Board is not an all-powerful organisation but it decides a lot of things when it comes selecting candidates for elections.
The Board decides the nominees for Assembly elections and in a Lok Sabha by-poll it decides a lot of issues.
Modi had critics in the board and even former PM Atal Behari Vajpayee and former deputy PM L K Advani had not always favoured him and are reportedly unhappy with his handling of the situation in Gujarat after the 2002 riots.
Modi has been trying to acquire a national stature and has visited around the country as part of the Vibrant Gujarat campaign. By removing him from the board, Modi is being told to stick to Gujarat.
Sanjay Joshi’s exit from the board maybe seen as a sort of political balance—the RSS wanted him removed after the sleaze CDs scandal during a BJP conclave in December 2005.
"In view of the request made by Sanjay Joshi, general secretary (organisation), to relieve him of his responsibility, the BJP has relieved him and appointed Shri Ram Lal at this post," party spokesperson Prakash Javadekar said.
Gopinath Munde, a prominent OBC leader from Maharashtra and brother-in-law of late Pramod Mahajan, has been made a general secretary.
Yashwant Sinha, who was sidelined for criticising Advani, has been rehabilitated as a party vice-president.
Former union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy replaces senior party spokesperson Arun Jaitley as spokesperson, but Jaitley gets a spot in the Parliamentary Board as its secretary.
Team BJP
An IANS report says the new BJP team has nine vice-presidents: Kalyan Singh, Balasaheb Apte, former finance minister Yashwant Sinha, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, former Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma, former Himachal Pradesh chief minister Shanta Kumar, tribal leader Jual Oram, Madhya Pradesh leader Kailash Meghwal and Chhattisgarh MP Karuna Shukla.
Former central ministers Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, former Maharashtra deputy chief minister Gopinath Munde, former Bajrang Dal chief Vinay Katiyar, Thawarchand Gehlot and veteran leader Om Prakash Mathur are general secretaries.
The new team has nine secretaries. Ram Das Agarwal has been appointed treasurer of the party while Ravi Shankar Prasad, Prakash Javadekar and Rajiv Pratap Rudy will be spokespersons.
The party also announced a newly constituted national executive, which includes 13 women, six members from scheduled castes and five of schedule tribes.
In addition to former prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and former party chief L.K. Advani most senior leaders have been re-nominated.
The list includes Bollywood stars of yesteryears - Shatrughan Sinha and Hema Malini - cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu and Varun Gandhi, nephew of Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
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