New roles for Venkaiah, Ananth Kumar

In an attempt to broadbase decision making in the party, BJP president Rajnath Singh on Sunday announced several changes in the party. M Venkaiah Naidu is now election in-charge of the poll-bound states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan and also the convener of the seven member core-group formed out of the election management committee. Ananth Kumar’s stature, too, rises with his appointment as the Secretary of the election management committee and the core group committee. A war room is being set up at Ananth Kumar’s residence to oversee election management and strategy.

While Arun Jaitley is in-charge of Karnataka, Ravi Shankar Prasad is election in-charge of Chhattisgarh. The core-group includes Murali Manohar Joshi, Jaswant Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley, Ram Lal and Ananth Kumar.

Rajnath Singh had announced the election management committee three months ago. At that time it was widely interpreted as an attempt by Singh to run the party’s affairs single-handedly and even made many of his colleagues nervous. Sunday’s reorganisation seeks to accommodate other leaders and make the decision-making decentralised.