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Who will replace Rajnath Singh in UP?

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

With Rajnath Singh moving to Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party central leadership is now contemplating appointing a temporary party chief in Uttar Pradesh. Organisational elections in the state are due in February next year.

Rajnath Singh was sworn in as the union surface transport minister yesterday.

"Our leadership is aware that whoever fills Rajnath Singh's shoes has got to be a temporary appointee because the organisational elections in Uttar Pradesh will be held in February next year," BJP vice-president Jagdish Prasad Mathur told rediff.com today.

Another BJP vice-president, who did not wish to be identified, indicated that the names two state unit vice-presidents - Ram Prakash Tripathi and Ajaydeo Singh - were being discussed. He said the state had half-a-dozen vice-presidents and the central leadership had already initiated the process of ''selecting a suitable candidate."

Though the final decision would be taken by the central leadership, Chief Minister Ram Prakash Gupta has been given the responsibility of short-listing the candidates. This, given his strained relationship with Kalyan Singh, whom he replaced as the chief minister a few days back, is going to be tough task.

According to sources, Kalyan Singh has already initiated a low-key campaign to impress upon the central leadership that the party's defeat in the recent Lok Sabha polls was a direct fallout of it's failure to win backward caste votes.

The ousted chief minister is hoping to push the candidature of a backward class leader, preferably one of his own followers, to occupy the hot-seat.

However, party spokesman Venkaiah Naidu pointed out the party leadership was not in a particular hurry to fill the UP party chief's slot. "I cannot comment on who the prospective candidate are going to be. All I know is that the man chosen for the job has to be responsible and capable of taking care of the needs of the party in Uttar Pradesh."

The Uttar Pradesh "tangle" has engaged the attention was top party leaders, including Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani.

With the Congress emerging as a strong force in UP riding on a wave of upper-caste support, it remains to be seen how effective the clamour of the Kalyan camp for a backward-caste candidate would prove.

"The point is, both the backward and the upper caste voters of the BJP have to be satisfied with the choice of the new leader,'' a BJP Lok Sabha MP said.

The BJP leaders concern over the evolving political scene in Uttar Pradesh is justified because Kalyan Singh is not there only preoccupation. The party has observed with some disquiet the growing influence of Mulayam Singh Yadav and his Samajwadi Party.

This makes the selection of party chief a crucial decision and the party leadership is not going to take any hasty decisions.

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