JOIN USGujarat CM Narendra Modi’s growing acceptance in the party was visible on Friday as the BJP announced names of 12 members of the central election campaign committee he heads.
But a footnote in the declaration also established patriarch L K Advani’s position, along with that of president Rajnath Singh and ailing ex-PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee, to guide the poll panel that will be aided by 20 sub-committees in the campaign.
The members of central election campaign committee are former party presidents Nitin Gadkari and Venkaiah Naidu, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, Thawar Chand Gehlot, Ramlal and three CMs — Chhattisgarh’s Raman Singh, MP’s Shivraj Singh Chouhan and Goa’s Manohar Parrikar.
“All the sub-committees will be steered under the leadership of Narendra Modi... The party has given Modi the responsibility of 2014 elections... Under his leadership the whole campaign will move forward,” general secretary Ananth Kumar told reporters on Friday evening.
The names of the various panels were cleared by a parliamentary board in its meeting chaired by the party president.There were some differences on the names, which were sorted out subsequently.
Senior party leader Murli Manohar Joshi has been made in-charge of the manifesto panel. He will be assisted by Jaswant Singh, Yashwant Sinha, Sushil Modi and Shahnawaz Hussain, who are among the 15-odd members of the committee.
Similarly, Gadkari has also been asked to pay “special attention” to Delhi for the forthcoming Assembly election there, apart from putting together the party’s “vision document”. Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Amit Shah and Sudhanshu Trivedi will be part of the electronic, print and outdoor media campaign committee.
The opposition party has also decided to come up with a charge sheet against the UPA and Congress-ruled states for misgovernment and corruption, and the current economic crisis. “We will present it to the people,” said Ananth Kumar.
Some other panels have been formed to reach out to the youth through social media, court first-time voters and for “crowd-sourcing”. Kumar said the new voters’ category is crucial as it forms 20 per cent of the electorate. Modi’s aide Amit Shah, late Pramod Mahajan’s daughter Poonam Mahajan, cricketer-turned-MP Navjot Singh Sidhu and Trivendra Rawat will work together to rope in these voters.