Thakre given charge of U.P.

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JUNE 6. The Bharatiya Janata Party president, Mr. Jana Krishnamurthi, today announced some small but significant changes in the list of office-bearers of the party, the first since he took over as president in March after the Tehelka episode led to the resignation of Mr. Bangaru Laxman.

Three key partymen - Mr. Kailashpati Mishra, Mr. Pyarelal Khandelwal and Mr. Narendra Modi - have emerged as most important. They will virtually shoulder the responsibility of revitalising the party, being overall responsible for the health of the organising, training of cadre and election strategy. While Mr. Modi will continue to shoulder the responsibility of organising the party machinery, Mr. Mishra has been given charge of training. (He will continue as the person in-charge of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, West Bengal and Andaman and Nicobar islands). Mr. Khandelwal will look after election-related matters.

With elections taking place some place every two or three months, a need was felt for a man devoted fulltime to this job of getting the party ready to face the battle of the ballots, Mr. Krishnamurthi said. It also means that wherever elections are held the three keymen will be involved besides the man in-charge of political affairs of that State.

The former party president, Mr. Kushabhau Thakre, has been given the critical task of looking after Uttar Pradesh as its prabhari or the man in-charge. He has also been given the responsibility for Uttaranchal (where elections will take place along with Uttar Pradesh) and Delhi, where important municipal elections are due shortly.

In a kind of exchange of places, while Mr. Sahib Singh Verma, who was general secretary, has been promoted as vice- president, Mr. Sanghpriya Gautam, former general-secretary who had faced a similar extinction, has been brought back to his old position, presumably because the party wants to send a positive signal to Dalits after the exit of Mr. Laxman. Another `Dalit leader', Mr. Sanjay Paswan has been inducted as secretary and is expected to be given charge of the Scheduled Castes Morcha.

Mr. Khandelwal, who was vice-president, has been given the more critical and active position of general secretary. He was earlier in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, but in his new role as election in- charge he will be everywhere where elections are due.

The post of office-secretary, held earlier by Dr. Ram Kripal Sinha, has been abolished and instead Ms. Maya Singh, general secretary, has been given charge of the headquarters. Mr. Sinha has been accommodated as secretary.

Mr. V. Ramarao, Andhra Pradesh leader, and Mr. Ramdas Aggarwal from Rajasthan, have been taken in as vice-presidents. Mr. Ramarao has been put in-charge of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Pondicherry and Lakshdweep, while Mr. Aggarwal is to devote his time fully to making fund collection more transparent, a job that has acquired urgency after the Tehelka episode, Mr. Krishnamurthi said.

Mr. Ashwini Kumar, a leader from Bihar, has been put in-charge of Andhra Pradesh, while Mr. Madan Lal Khurana has been made prabhari of Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Gujarat. Mr. Padmanabha Acharya will continue to look after the seven States in the North-east as well as Assam. Another significant induction is that of Mr. Om Prakash Kohli, an important party leader from Delhi, as secretary with charge of Rajasthan, Haryana, Chandigarh, Himachal, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.

Earlier, party leaders from a particular State were often made in-charge of those States. It led to problems for the party as often the prabharis themselves were charged with indulging in factional politics. Mr. Krishnamurthi seems to have very carefully decided not to give the responsibility of any State to a person from the same State.

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