‘Today Narendra Modi proposed that the election campaign committee should be lead by party president Rajnath Singh,’ informed BJP leader Ananth Kumar, after the parliamentary board meeting of the party. Sources said that the decision to go with Singh as the chief of the election campaign committee was taken as this would not create another power centre in the BJP. ‘There will be no controversy now as the party president has been appointed the election campaign chief, and there will be no opposition to his name,’ said a senior BJP leader.
Singh’s appointment to the post also displays the delicate power balance between Modi and the BJP president, as the latter had vociferously pushed for Modi’s nomination as the prime ministerial candidate of the party. ‘This shows that there will be only two power centres in the party: one will be Modi and other will be Rajnath Singh,’ said a BJP leader. A new team under the BJP president will now be formed to delegate the various tasks.
Initially the name of leader of opposition, Rajya Sabha, Arun Jaitley was also doing the rounds. However, a section in the party was of the opinion that in 2009 Jaitley was made the campaign committee chief but he had failed to raise the graph.
While the transition between Modi and Singh has been smooth, in the past Modi’s appointment as the election campaign head had caused a few heartburns in the party. Senior BJP leader LK Advani had skipped the party’s national executive in Goa where Modi was appointed as the campaign head. The veteran party leader had even resigned from all party posts to express his reservation towards Modi’s candidature and it was only after much persuasion by the RSS that Advani withdrew his resignation.