Will Jinnah controversy affect Rajnath as BJP chief?

Singh had taken over the reins of the organisation after Advani was forced by the RSS to quit as party chief on December 31,2005.

Advani had put in his papers after the conclusion of the silver jubilee celebrations of the party in Mumbai on that day passing on the mantle to Rajnath.

The latest action against Jaswant Singh has come at a moment when time is running out for Rajnath as party chief as his term is ending by year-end.

The “chintan baithak” currently on at Shimla for deciding the road ahead for the organisation has,therefore,been overshadowed by the expulsion of Jaswant from the party,the decision about which was communicated to him over phone by Rajnath.

A section of the BJP including several senior leaders are opposed to yet another term for Rajnath and there have been no signs of an end to the factionalism in the party despite RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat’s direction to do so.

Just before the Lok Sabha elections,Kalyan Singh,in whose cabinet in Uttar Pradesh Rajnath had worked as a Minister,resigned from the BJP alleging that he was feeling “humiliated and suffocated” in the party.

Kalyan had said it was a “mistake” on his part to rejoin the organisation ahead of the 2004 Lok Sabha polls.

Critics of Rajnath Singh in the party say that he had removed Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi from the party’s Parliamentary Board just before the last Assembly elections in the state.

It was around this time he had dropped Arun Jaitley as the Chief Spokesman of the party.

Babulal Marandi,who had been one of the key leaders of the BJP in Jharkhand,parted ways with the organisation sometime ago after he was replaced as Chief Minister by Arjun Munda sometime back.

Rajnath Singh,who was in charge of party affairs in the state,had backed Munda.