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BJP gets battle-ready, announces jumbo team

After the meeting of its parliamentary board, the BJP on Friday announced an omnibus 85-odd member campaign team for the upcoming state assembly polls and 2014 general elections. This campaign team has been divided into 20 sub-committees.

These sub-committees would in turn report to a 12-member central election campaign committee headed by Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi but will be ‘guided’ by former prime minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee, National Democratic Alliance (NDA) working chairman L K Advani and BJP president Rajnath Singh.

This campaign committee has three other BJP chief ministers – Shivraj Singh Chouhan of Madhya Pradesh, Dr Raman Singh of Chhattisgarh and Manohar Parrikar of Goa – as members, thus in a way conceding their prominence in the party hierarchy. Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan has been repeatedly projected by Advani as an alternative to Modi and his inclusion in the campaign committee is an indication of the party doing the balancing act.

‘All the sub-committees will be steered under the leadership of Narendra Modi... The party has given Modi the responsibility of 2014 elections... Under his leadership the whole campaign will move forward,’ said BJP general secretary Ananth Kumar while announcing the list and responding to a volley of queries from mediapersons.

The sub-committees have an evident stamp of Modi and Rajnath Singh, with Modi’s key aide Amit Shah being made member of publicity committee. The publicity committee which will be in-charge of print and electronic campaign has Leader of Opposition, Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, Leader of Opposition, Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley and BJP president’s aide Sudhanshu Trivedi as other members.
BJP general secretary Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who is considered close to Rajnath Singh, has been made member in-charge of intellectual committee and booth level coordination committee. The prominent party leaders not to find place in the 20 sub-committees are Rajya Sabha MPs Najma Heptullah, Hema Malini and Chandan Mitra.

The party’s manifesto committee will be headed by Murli Manohar Joshi and the vision document will be prepared by former BJP president Nitin Gadkari, who has also been given charge of Delhi assembly elections.
‘BJP president has asked Nitin Gadkari to give special attention to Delhi in the coming assembly elections,’ said Ananth Kumar.    
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