Narendra Modi gets a grip on BJP leadership

Other parliamentary board members Ananth Kumar,Ramlal and Thawar-chand Gehlot,too will work under Modi as members of the CECC. The only two active leaders in the party who will not be Modi’s subordinates are party president Rajnath Singh and veteran leader L K Advani.

Related: Gadkari,Sidhu to oversee BJP poll campaign in Delhi

“He (Modi) is the chairman of the central election campaign committee. Under his leadership we will be moving forward. Atal,Advani and Rajnath Singh are our top leaders,so the entire committee will work under their guidance,” senior leader Ananth Kumar told reporters when asked if the entire top leadership barring Singh and Advani would report to Modi as CECC members.

However,some party insiders claimed that Modi had been partially restrained in the exercise as he had been saddled with senior leaders in the CECC that will examine proposals and plans of 19 sub-committees that have been assigned election campaign responsibilities.

These sub-committees will report to the CECC.

“Whenever a sub-committee has finalised any plan,it will have to seek the consent of the central election campaign committee where almost the entire parliamentary board is present. This will take some freedom away from Modi as everyone will have a say in changing any plan. Modi should have been given a free hand,” said the chairman of one of the sub-committees,ruing the fact that Modi will have to take everyone on board.

Another section of party leaders,however,played this down saying the “campaign committee is not going to take policy decisions. They will hardly meet closer to the elections”,and consequently,the notion of Modi being saddled with senior leaders is merely on paper.

At best,all senior members will be in the loop on the direction and strategy of the campaign,another senior leader said.

“They all have fallen in their slots,” said an influential party leader,acknowledging the move as setting the pecking order clear for second generation leaders. In a way,Modi has been assigned to preside over the parliamentary board except when Rajnath Singh and Advani are present,the leader added.

Friday’s announcement also put the party in campaign mode for the Lok Sabha elections. Senior leader Murli Manohar Joshi will chair the sub-committee to finalise the manifesto and Gadkari will chair the committee to prepare the vision document for the elections.

Swaraj and Jaitley will be jointly chairing the publicity sub-committee,assisted by Modi’s confidant Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh’s confidant Sudhanshu Trivedi.

While the party’s nationwide rallies will be planned by a sub-committee comprising of general secretaries Ananth Kumar and Varun Gandhi,programme coordination and logistics for all campaign related activities will be monitored by a sub-committee headed by Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi.

Naidu and Gadkari have additionally been assigned to provide guidance to three different sub-committees each. However,Gadkari has been placed a notch above Naidu with the responsibility to head a sub-committee on the vision document whereas no such separate responsibility has been assigned to Naidu. Kumar also said Gadkari will additionally look after the affairs of poll-bound Delhi.

Both deputy leaders of the party in Parliament,Gopinath Munde and Ravi Shankar Prasad,have jointly been assigned the sub-committee to prepare the “chargesheet against the UPA” for the elections.