A day after Rajnath Singh took charge as the country's Home Minister,
the BJP scaled up its efforts to select his replacement as party
president.
The BJP's constitution forbids a leader from holding a
dual charge, and Mr Singh, 62, is likely to resign from the party
president's post next week in keeping with the rules governing
organizational functioning.
Among those who are being tipped to
replace Mr Singh as the BJP president are J P Nadda and Amit Shah, both
of whom are party general secretaries at present. Former Rajasthan BJP
president Om Mathur is also said to be in the reckoning, sources in the
BJP said.
BJP leaders have been in touch with the top brass of
the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, or the RSS, their party's ideological
mentor, discussing probable names for the next BJP president. But the
final decision, sources said, is likely to be made by Prime Minister
Narendra Modi in consultation with RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and his three
senior colleagues -Suresh "Bhaiyyaji" Joshi, Suresh Soni and Dattatreya
Hosbole.
Mr Nadda, 53, is a low-profile, non-controversial
leader from Himachal Pradesh, who has served the Akhil Bharatiya
Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the RSS, and the Bharatiya
Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the BJP's youth wing. He shares a good
rapport with Mr Modi.
Mr Shah, who has turned 50, is one of the
few BJP leaders who enjoys Mr Modi's complete trust. His stock within
the party set-up went up several notches after he scripted the BJP's
stunning victory in Uttar Pradesh, where the party bagged 71 of the 80
Lok Sabha seats. But like Mr Modi, he too hails from Gujarat, and this
could work against his selection.
Mr Mathur, at 61, is the oldest
among the three contenders. He was in-charge of the BJP's election
campaign in Gujarat, where the party made a clean sweep. He too is said
to be in Mr Modi's good books, shares an uneasy relationship with
Vasundhara Raje Scindia, the chief minister of his home state,
Rajasthan.
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