11 September 2000

GOVIND, UMA BHARTI & SUSHMA SWARAJ KEPT OUT AS PER THEIR "OWN WISH"

From Jal Khambata

NEW DELHI: The hard-core ideologue K N Govindacharya and his Sadhvi friend Uma Bharti were on Monday relegated to insignificance in the Bhartiya Janata Party as per their "own wish" even as its President Bangaru Laxman finalised his new team to lead the party for the next three years.

Govindacharya, who was aiming at the topmost slot of the party president, felt slighted at Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee rejecting him outright, maybe because of his pro-Swadeshi talks, and opted to take a 2-year leave to study problems of the country instead of continuing as a vice-president or general secretary. Laxman only fulfilled his wish though making him a member of the 50-member national executive, Vice-President Jana Krishnamurthy announced.

Uma Bharti, who had also fallen out with Vajpayee to compel her to resign as a minister of state in his government, was in good books of Laxman but wanted to be relieved even as a member of Parliament from Bhopal and  Krishnamurthy ended speculation about her fate, stating that "her wish has been respected." She is now nobody in the party except to continue as an ordinary member.

One person who had earned Laxman's instant liking for being outspoken at the party's national council meeting held in Nagpur last month was former Union Minister Sushma Swaraj. He wanted her to be an office-bearer and take over from M Venkaiah Naidu as the spokesman. Disclosing that Sushma was approached by the party president, Krishnamurthy said she had declined any position because of "certain personal difficulties" and as such she will be only a member of the National Executive. She is a Rajya Sabha member from Uttar Pradesh.

Krishnamurthy will not admit that Govindacharya, Sushma and Uma Bharti had all lost trust of the Prime Minister and Laxman would not entertain anybody disliked by Vajpayee lest they bring the party into confrontation with the government which he disapproves personally.

Laxman also tactfully handled his predecessor Kushabhau Thakre's pressure to keep out Pyarelal Khandelwal, a RSS bachelor and senior party leader from Madhya Pradesh who was shunted to Orissa. Thakre propped up Mrs Maya Singh as a better choice than Kandelwal for the general secretary's post. Laxman accepted Thakre's candidate Maya Singh as one of the five general secretaries but put Pyarelal Khandelwal still higher as a national vice-president.

While releasing the list of office-bearers and national executive members, Krishnamurthy told reporters here on Monday that the President would be finalising names of the frontal organisations' heads in a few days. The allocation of work among the office-bearers also remains to be made.

Both former chief ministers of Delhi and now Lok Sabha members find place in Laxman's team of office-bearers -- Madanlal Khurana as a vice-president and Saheb Singh Verma as a general secretary. V P Goyal of Mumbai, a permanent fixture as the national treasurer irrespective of whosoever becomes the president, continues in the post while former Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Gopinath Munde joins the national team as a vice-president.

There are seven vice-presidents, five general secretaries and five secretaries, besides Dr Ram Kirpal Sinha continuing as office-secretary and Ashwini Kumar as head of the Parliamentary Party Office.  Besides 50 national executive members, there are 19 special invitees as also all state presidents and leaders of the legislature parties as permanent invitees. Besides, general secretaries of ten states will be invitees and they include P Venugopal Reddy of Andhra Pradesh, Sanjay Joshi of Gujarat, Bhagawat Swarup of Jammu and Kashmir, Sharad Kulkarni of Maharashtra, Prasanna Kumar Mishra of Orissa and Omprakash Mathur of Rajasthan.

Vice-Presidents: Jana Krishnamurthy, Kailashpati Mishra, Karia Munda, Sangh Priya Gautam (promotion from General Secretary), Pyarelal Khandelwal, Gopinath Munde and Madanlal Khurana.

General-Secretaries: M Venkaiah Naidu, Narendra Modi, Sunil Shastry, Saheb Singh Verma and Maya Singh.

Secretaries: Muqtar Abbas Naqvi, Padmanabha Acharya, Kshetrapal, Kanta Nalavade and Dalpat Singh Paraste.

Treasurer: V. P. Goyal.

The national executive members include the Prime Minister, Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani, Human Resources Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, former President Kushabhau Thakre, as also Sushma Swaraj, K N Govindacharya, V Rama Rao, Ram Das Agarwal of Rajasthan, besides several Union ministers like Pramod Mahajan, Chamanlal Gupta, Sundar Lal Patwa, Satyanarayan Jatiya and Sumitra Mahajan from Madhjya Pradesh, Kashi Ram Rana and Arun Jaitley. The Special invitees also include Union Ministers like Ananth Kumar, Ram Naik, Rajnath Singh and Arun Shourie besides others. END.