Former Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee will have his hands full when he comes here tomorrow on a two-day visit. This will be Vajpayee’s first visit to his parliamentary constituency as MP and not prime minister since 1998.The visit is considered crucial for the BJP’s state unit because Vajpayee is scheduled to hold a detailed discussion with party leaders on the state of affairs in UP, and is even likely to announce the name of the state unit chief.Organisational polls of the party’s state unit are expected to be held this month and the party will have to select a full-time state unit chief to replace Vinay Katiyar who has been holding the post on an ad hoc basis.Besides, the BJP leadership is toying with the idea of having a new leader in charge of the state unit instead of saddling senior leaders Rajnath Singh, Kalraj Mishra or Om Prakash Singh with the responsibility. ‘‘A relatively young leader as compared to those who have already been tried will yield desired results as there will be total unanimity among top leaders on the name of the new leader,’’ a senior party leader said. ‘‘This will end groupism which has proved a bane for the party in the state, reducing its strength from the maximum of 57 MPs in 1996 to 10 in 2004.’’BJP workers, however, have little hope of meeting Vajpayee, inaccessible as ever. While he will be closetted at Raj Bhavan with various delegations through the two days, the guest list for dinner at Lalji Tandon’s tomorrow is also limited.The only brief meeting the former PM will have with party workers is at Shishu mandir in Nirala Nagar around 8 pm. ‘‘There also, he will remain only for 15 minutes which means we will not find time to interact with him. It will be more of a monologue rather than the real exercise to strike a rapport with the grassroots party workers. The BJP is suffering from sycophancy in the state and this trend has not been checked even during his first visit as an MP,’’ a party worker said.Whether things change in UP or not, the former PM will have a change of address. While he moves out of 3 Race Course Road tomorrow, he will return to 6A Krishna Menon Marg, on Sunday.
