New Delhi, November 28
Former Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will be the new president of the Bihar unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Mr Prasad’s appointment - which takes care of the party’s needs for maintaining a caste balance — will be a setback for the two Sinhas — Mr Shatrughan Sinha and Mr Yashwant Sinha — who have rebelled against the party.

He belongs to the Kayastha caste to which the two Sinhas also belong. The party’s attempt is to broadbase its support to include the upper castes.

Mr Prasad will succeed Mr Sushil Modi, who belongs to a backward caste and has been inducted as Deputy Chief Minister in the JD(U)-BJP government. Interestingly, Mr Prasad’s elevation has been brought about by the joining of hands by the otherwise arch rivals, Mr Pramod Mahajan and Mr Arun Jaitley.

Recently, the two of them came together to prevent Ms Uma Bharti from getting back the post of Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, which she relinquished following an arrest warrant issued against her in an old case in Karnataka.

Mr Prasad was in the limelight when a youth shot at him with a country-made revolver at a public meeting in Rohtas district of Bihar. He was injured and the BJP gained considerable public sympathy.

Mr Prasad is believed to have succeeded in preventing his political rival, Mr Navin Sinha, an MLA from Patna who won by a record margin, from getting a berth in the Nitish Kumar government.

Sources say the BJP is determined to show “Bihari Babu” Shatrughan Sinha that he is not indispensable to the BJP. It may be recalled that Mr Sinha refused to campaign for the BJP in the recent elections on the ground that party tickets were given to criminals.

Mr Arun Jaitley is credited with the idea of making Mr Prasad the head of the state unit as it would not alienate Mr Shatrughan Sinha’s Kayastha supporters.

Another second-generation rival of Mr Sinha, Ms Sushma Swaraj is already on record saying that the BJP won without the film star-turned-politician and he is now free to go wherever he wanted.

The “Bihari Babu” has so far been keeping silent but his supporters say that he may give the BJP’s second-generation leaders a “befitting reply” soon.

Meanwhile, the Jaitley-Mahajan team is busy promoting the idea of using “discipline” to deal with their rivals. It is used to block and hit out at rivals.

After Ms Bharati, their common target seems to be former Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi, who is a strong contender for the presidentship of the party. By talking of discipline and collective leadership, the two leaders are pushing for Mr Venkaiah Naidu to replace Mr L K Advani in December.

Says a senior leader sarcastically: “Let’s see how long this marriage of convenience lasts before a fresh volley of off- the record briefings starts against each other”.