NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday said its national executive committee meeting scheduled to be held in June in Jaipur would now be held in Delhi.

Party spokesman Ravi Shankar Prasad said it was not possible to hold it in Jaipur because of the violence that erupted after the Gujjar agitation for Scheduled Tribe status. It would be held here on June 15 and 16.

The question of compensation for the 20 persons killed since Tuesday in police firing and mob violence and the issue of ordering an inquiry into the violence was being discussed between a State ministerial group and the Gujjar leadership, he said.

With reports coming in from Dausa of clashes between the Gujjars and the tribal Meenas, opposed to ST status for the former, the worst fears of the BJP central leadership seemed to have come true. Even as there were reports of more deaths in Rajasthan, Gujjar delegations met BJP president Rajnath Singh here to demand intervention by the party's central leadership.

Mr. Singh told the Gujjar Vikas Parishad and the Gujjar Mahasabha delegations that peace must be restored and any solution could only be found through a dialogue. He told reporters later that the BJP would do "whatever is necessary" to restore order even as some party leaders suggested that the State Government hold talks with the Meenas while continuing its dialogue with the Gujjars.

The Gujjar leaders reportedly expressed dissatisfaction with Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje for the "laxity of the Government" in handling the issue.

Although in the midst of the crisis the central leadership does not want to talk about a change in the State leadership, it is well aware that the level of disenchantment with Ms. Raje even among her own Ministers is high.

It was only after Mr. Rajnath Singh's intervention last winter that several senior Ministers, including Ghanshyam Tiwari, Gulabchand Kataria and Madan Dilawar, were persuaded to continue. Offers of resignation by several Gujjar and Meena MLAs of the party are now before the leadership. They are being persuaded not to press these.

What has made matters more precarious for Ms. Raje is that she seems to have alienated the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh "ever since she walked the ramp in a beauty pageant in Jaipur several months ago," said a party leader.

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