BJP to announce team today

The BJP team for the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the upcoming state elections, spread over about a dozen sub-committees to manage issues like campaigning, preparation of manifestoes, rallies and publicity, will be announced on Friday.

The BJP parliamentary board meeting, presided by party president Rajnath Singh, on Thursday evening prepared the broad counters of election work allocation.

However, differences remained among leaders on identifying state election in-charge. The sources said that former BJP president Nitin Gadkari has refused to take over the reins in Delhi, which will also go to polls along with Madhya Pradesh (MP), Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh.

It is learnt that one of the reasons behind Gadkari’s refusal is due to the fact that the BJP’s chances of winning is not that bright in comparison with states like Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh. 

Also, he is believed to be of the view that his stature in the party, being a former president, was bigger than the post he was being offered.

Party sources said that he had shown interest in taking charge of Rajasthan. Gadkari, who was one of the 12 top leaders apart from L K Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and Venkaiah Naidu, left the meeting before others got out.  While general secretaries will get the responsibilities to head sub-committees for poll bound states, senior leaders such as Swaraj and Jaitley are expected to get positions keeping in mind their standing in the party.

The senior leaders cannot be seen to be doing election management work under any structure headed by poll campaign chief Narendra Modi, sources said. 

By virtue of being a parliamentary board member, which is the top decision making body of the party, the members cannot be tasked to share responsibility under Modi. 

Singh and Modi went into a huddle on Wednesday to put together a list of election related committees to give specific task to leaders.

The RSS, which recently had a series of meetings with Singh, Advani, Modi, Gadkari and Murli Manohar Joshi, has told the BJP to take along everyone, especially seniors so that the party can put a united fight.