The Hindu : Khurana loyalists dropped from Vardhan's team

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jan 11, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Khurana loyalists dropped from Vardhan's team

NEW DELHI, JAN.10. The Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party president, Harsh Vardhan, today announced a 15-member new team of office-bearers, ousting a majority of the Khurana loyalists. The list clearly has the stamp of the Sangh Parivar, which is learnt to have played an important role in preparing the new set-up to face the next Lok Sabha elections. Only five people have been retained and 10 new faces have been inducted.

While Dr. Vardhan has retained the Poorvanchal leader and Khurana loyalist and East Delhi Member of Parliament, Lal Bihari Tiwari, as the vice-president, he has replaced all the other vice-presidents including former Ministers Harsharan Singh Balli and S.P. Ratawal and the sitting MLA, Vijay Jolly. The other vice-presidents include Ram Bhaj, who lost the recent Assembly polls, S.S. Bajwa, sitting MLA from Tughlakabad, Ramesh Bidhuri, and the sole minority community representative, Abdul Hafeez.

The Mahila Morcha president in the old team, Meera Kanwaria, has been designated general secretary along with Vijay Jolly. Another general secretary in the previous team, Pawan Sharma, retains his place. Shyam Lal Garg will continue to function as the treasurer. As for the secretaries, only the Rohini Councillor, Vijender Kumar Gupta, retains his place. The other secretaries are - Satya Prakash Rana, Monica Kakkar, Arun Jain and Chaudhary Chand Ram. The new office secretary will be Uday Sharma.

In fact, according to party sources, Dr. Vardhan, with the help of the RSS, has been able to clip the wings of the Union Labour Minister, Sahib Singh Verma, and the South Delhi Member of Parliament, Vijay Kumar Malhotra. In fact, some of the known rivals of Mr. Verma have been included in the new team.

Interestingly, the Punjabi dominance has been checked and a majority of the loyalists of the former Chief Minister, Madan Lal Khurana, have been shown the door. These include the former general secretary, Mool Chand Chawla, and the former party Chief Whip, Nand Kishore Garg, who recently lost the Assembly polls. Interestingly, a number of party candidates who contested but lost in the recent Assembly polls have found a place in the new team. These include, Satya Prakash Rana, who contested from the Mahipalpur constituency and lost. Then there was the young leader, Monika Kakkar "Arora'' who lost from the Malviya Nagar constituency.

The new team is likely to leave a lot many people unhappy and pit the senior party leaders within Delhi BJP against Dr. Vardhan. Those who have been left out or dropped for poor performing are in no mood to relent and have termed the reshuffle as vindictive and aimed at neutralising the supporters of all the other groups within the party.

Interestingly, the former BJP president, Mange Ram Garg, has managed to get in his loyalist, Mr. Bajwa, into the new team. However, the absence of young faces could hamper the efforts of the party to lure this section from the Congress during the Lok Sabha polls.

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