The Hindu : Front Page : Uma Bharti not in BJP's new team

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 31, 2004

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Front Page

Uma Bharti not in BJP's new team

By Neena Vyas

NEW DELHI, OCT. 30. The name of the former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, Uma Bharti, is not there in the list of office-bearers of the Bharatiya Janata Party released here today.

While five general secretaries, Pramod Mahajan, Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Shivraj Singh Chauhan and Sanjay Joshi, have been retained, the former Union Minister and Karnataka leader, Anantha Kumar, is the new general secretary in the list.

Well-placed sources in the party said that Ms. Bharti was to have been accommodated as the seventh general secretary but late last night her name was dropped. She had apparently demanded that she be given charge of Madhya Pradesh and also made a member of the all-powerful Central Election Committee, which is yet to be revamped. Significantly, one post of general secretary and one of vice-president are vacant.

The former Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the party president, Advani, the former party chief, Venkaiah Naidu, and the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, Jaswant Singh, met yesterday to finalise the new team. Mr. Advani tried to persuade Mr. Naidu to accept the post of general secretary, but the latter said he would not accept a post and would be happy to do any party work given by Mr. Advani.

Mr. Advani has retained all the seven vice-presidents — Kalyan Singh, Bal Apte, Babulal Marandi, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Sushil Modi, Jaskaur Meena and Thavarchand Gehlot. Kishan Singh Sangwan from Haryana, where elections are due in about four months, is the new name in this list.

Surprise inclusion

A surprise inclusion in the list of nine secretaries is that of Sudheendra Kulkarni. He had so far been doing the behind-the-scene work — writing speeches for Mr. Vajpayee, and more recently, advising Mr. Naidu. Five in Mr. Naidu's team who have been retained are, L. Ganesan (Tamil Nadu), Shahnawaz Hussain (Bihar), Kiran Maheshwari (Rajasthan), Tapir Gao (Arunachal) and Vijay Girkar (Maharashtra). The three new names are: Bandaru Dattatreya and Hari Babu (both Andhra Pradesh) and Om Mathur (Rajasthan). The old hand, Ved Prakash Goyal, is back in his job as treasurer. He had left it for a while when he became a Minister in the Vajpayee Government.

Varun Gandhi, Najma Heptullah, Arif Mohammed Khan and S. Bangarappa, who all had joined the BJP just ahead of the Lok Sabha election, find a place in national executive committee. While Mr. Gandhi has been accommodated as a regular member, the other three have the status of "special invitees."

Kailashpati Mishra and Madan Lal Khurana, who gave up governor's post recently, find a place in the national executive as does the former Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Vijai Kapoor. Two former bureaucrats who have become party members — Ghanshyam Tiwari and Francis D'Souza — have also been accommodated in the executive. A surprise exclusion is Seshadri Chari, former editor of The Organiser. Inducted into the executive earlier this year, he is known to be close to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh chief, K.S. Sudarshan.

Several important party leaders — Sushma Swaraj, Mr. Jaswant Singh and V.K. Malhotra — will be ex-officio members as they hold offices in the parliamentary party.

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