26 June 2002
RAJNATH TO BE NEW BJP
PRESIDENT
From Jal Khambata
NEW
DELHI: Former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Rajnath Singh is tipped to
be the new national president of the Bhartiya Janata Party, a top
party source disclosed Wednesday evening.
He may have failed
to get the BJP a clear majority in Uttar Pradesh in the Assembly
elections but the organisational capabilities he displayed during his
tenure as the chief minister weighed on the minds of the BJP and RSS
leaderships to choose him to head the party, the source said.
The
top leaders of BJP and RSS, who held two rounds of consultations at
the Prime Minister's residence, decided that present BJP President K
Jana Krishnamurthi cannot deliver as the party needs a north-Indian
who can revive the falling vote bank in the Hindi belt to ensure its
victory in the next Lok Sabha elections, the source said.
He
said Krishnamurthi is certainly reluctant to leave the post a year in
advance as the organisational elections are due in 2003 but he has
been firmly told that he cannot continue as the BJP
President.
Krishnamurthi has been offered a Cabinet berth at
the Centre and even told that he would get the Human Resources
Development Ministry, which is one of the most important portfolios
in the Government. He has been given two days to decide whether he
wants to join the Government or not as in either case he has to
vacate the party presidentship, the source said.
Murli Manohar
Joshi, a hardliner, is presently the Human Resources Development
Minister who has stood firm against all sorts of controversies
erupting against his determined attempts to saffronise the education
and educational and research institutions.
The offer of his
post to Krishnamurthi indicates that he may be India's new Finance
Minister in place of Yashwant Sinha who is tipped to be either
shifted to some other ministry or included in the list of those being
dropped to assign them the organisational responsibilities.
The
Swadeshi lobby and other hardliners in the Sangh Parivar had been
campaigning for Sinha's exit from the Finance Ministry and their
favourites for the post are Joshi and Arun Shourie in that order. The
majority of them wanted the post to go to Joshi as they say he had
shown guts to implement the BJP line in the Human Resources
Development Ministry despite stiff opposition and as such he can also
deliver in a short span as the Finance Minister.
Joshi ranks
third in the BJP hierarchy and also occupies the third position in
the Government after Vajpayee and L K Advani, though his position in
the government is denied by Vajpayee who has always tried to project
Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh as No 3 in the
Government.
Appointment of Joshi as the Finance Minister would
make his position in the Government stronger to become No 3 by his
own right since he would be needed for every decision the Government
by virtue of his holding the purse. END