NEW DELHI: Eight months after he took as
Bhrataiya Janata Party (BJP) president, Kushabhau
Thakre allocated work to the party's
office-bearers, virtually announcing that those
who had been assigned specific tasks would not be
among those who might be included in the next
ministerial expansion, whenever that takes place.
The most significant appointment was that of
general secretary K.N. Govindacharya who has been
made in charge of Rajasthan, instead of
Rajasthan. Kailashpati Mishra, a party vice
president, has been given Bihar and additional
charge of West Bengal. Clearly, Mr Govindacharya
has fallen victim to the factionalism in the
BJP's Bihar unit.
The other significant point in the list is that
Mr Thakre has not been able to appoint anyone for
Delhi - after the recent debacle the party faced
in Delhi, the continued intra party fighting has
reportedly made it difficult for anyone to be
appointed
General secretary M. Venkaiah Naidu, who was in
charge of Tamil Nadu, has now been moved to
Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, both of which are
due to go the polls in November later this year.
Party affairs in Tamil Nadu will be looked after
by vice president Bangaru Laxman. Mr Naidu will
also liaise between the party and the government
and look after elections as well as the
parliamentary board.
J.P. Mathur has been brought back as the party's
offical spokesman. He will also look after the
media cell and the party workers grievances
redress cell, while Kishanlal Sharma and Mr Naidu
will continue to be spokesmen. Vice president K.
Jana Krishnamurthy will look after the party
headquarters and ``think tank.'' Former Madhya
Pradesh chief minister Sunder Lal Patwa has been
inducted as a new vice-president and put in
charge of Uttar Pradesh - he replaces Bihar
governor Sunder Singh Bhandari, who used to be in
charge of UP.
Narendra Modi will take care of Himachal Pradesh,
Punjab, Jammu And Kashmir, Haryana, Chandigarh;
BJP Yuva Morcha Sanghpriya Gautam of Maharashtra,
Goa and the Scheduled Castes Morcha; Sumitra
Mahajan of Gujarat and the Mahila Morcha and Ved
Prakash Goyal of the Overseas Friends of the BJP.
Padmanabh Acharya has been put in charge of the
north eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh,
Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur, Rajveer
Singh of Andaman and Nicobar, Sikkim and the
Kisan Morcha, Pyarelal Khandelwal of Assam,
Orissa and Aajeewan Sahayogi scheme, Basavraj
Patil of Kerala, Tanvir Ahmed of the Minority
Morcha and P S Kulastge of the Scheduled Tribe
Morcha, and Bansilal Soni of West Bengal and
Tripura.