RSS has sent a clear signal to BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley that they would like him to be closely involved in the party’s Uttarakhand campaign apart from Punjab, the state he is in charge of. This overrides attempts to downsize him following the announcement of the new team by party president Rajnath Singh. The move is in response to the feedback received by the Sangh on the negative impact created by the new team ahead of the assembly polls.Ram Lal, the BJP’s newly-appointed general secretary (organisation) and an RSS nominee spoke to Jaitley and told him that he should be actively involved in the party’s election effort in Uttarakhand. However, this will be in addition to the work undertaken by Ravi Shankar Prasad Singh, who is in charge of Uttarakhand and leading the party’s campaign strategy in the state.Sources said the RSS had taken a dim view of the efforts to curtail Jaitley’s role, and the move to mollify him by sounding him out on Uttarakhand is an effort to correct this. Ram Lal’s talk with Jaitley is said to be an indication that the RSS was not in agreement with some of the major changes charted out by Rajnath Singh in the roles of the party’s top leaders.Within two days of the announcement of Rajnath Singh’s new team, the party is aware that it has upset another high profile leader: Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi, who has been dropped from the central parliamentary board. For the record, while both Modi and Jaitley are very close, more so since Modi led the party to victory in Gujarat in 2002, neither leader has a good equation with the party chief.A party source said Modi was livid at finding himself out of the parliamentary board for no apparent reason. “Modi’s nomination to the parliamentary board last time was not anticipated and it caused some surprise at the time. However, once he was appointed there was no reason to drop him,” he said. A source close to the Gujarat chief minister said the CM did not deem it necessary to convey his sentiments to anyone in the party or the sangh.Singh was not wholly unprepared for the focus brought on Jaitley and Modi as a result of the announcement of his new team. Singh had discussed the list of his team members and the roles he wanted to assign them with party stalwart LK Advani who warned him he should do a rethink on some of the changes. But keen to establish his mark on the party, Singh went ahead with his planned changes.
