New Delhi:
A day after the BJP's top 12 leaders met to discuss their strategy for 2014, important posts have been assigned by BJP president Rajnath Singh.
The party chose
Narendra Modi as its campaign chief recently, and his close aide,
Amit Shah, has been assigned to mobilise social media. Mr Shah, the former Home Minister of Gujarat, is already in charge of the party's election plans for Uttar Pradesh.
Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, a General Secretary, has been tasked to prepare "a chargesheet" against the ruling coalition, the UPA. The BJP has been attacking the government for operating in an alleged continuum of corruption; it paralysed the last session of Parliament with demands for the Prime Minister's resignation.
Mr Modi was seated at yesterday's power-meet next to LK Advani, to signal that their rift has been stomped out. Mr Advani, 85, had resigned from party posts to protest against Mr Modi's promotion, but withdrew his resignation 24 hours later, thanks to the intervention of the BJP's parent body, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh or RSS.
Mr Advani spent several hours in Nagpur today with Mohan Bhagwat, the chief of the RSS, and emerged with comments that suggest a surge of understanding. "This discussion will help us change the national polity considering that assembly elections are being held in five-six states and Lok Sabha polls are also taking place. We will bring about change and take the nation in the right direction," he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Modi will make his big debut as campaign chief with a teleconference tomorrow with workers from his party in Bihar. His elevation within the BJP cost his party a 17-year-alliance here with Nitish Kumar and his Janata Dal (United). Mr Kumar had been compulsively critical of Mr Modi for years before that, banning him from campaigning in Bihar on the grounds that he is a divisive leader who did not do enough to stop hundreds of Muslims from being killed in riots in Gujarat in 2002.