M A I N   N E W S

Modi stamp evident as BJP unveils poll teams
Vibha Sharma/TNS

Battle ready The Modi-led central election campaign committee will have 12 members They include Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, Venkiah Naidu, besides CMs of 3 BJP-ruled states The committee will be assisted by 20 sub-committees to be led by top leaders such as Sushma, Jaitley and Gadkari The party will begin its campaign from August; plans 100 rallies across the country Sulking Sidhu on Board Amritsar MP Navjot Sidhu who has been sulking for a while now has been assigned the job of wooing new voters along with Narendra Modi’s close aide Amit Shah and Pramod Mahajan’s daughter Poonam. He will further assist Gadkari in looking after the party’s affairs in the Delhi Assembly elections

New Delhi, July 19
The BJP today unveiled its battle plan for the 2014 general election by announcing its much-awaited central election campaign committee led by Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi.

The12-member team will be assisted by 20 sub-committees headed by top leaders who will manage different aspects of the party’s 
election campaign.

Party bigwigs such as Sushma Swaraj, Arun Jaitley and former party president Nitin Gadkari have been assigned responsibilities in the new committees - the working of which will be supervised by Modi under the “overall guidance” of party veterans Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani and president Rajnath Singh, said BJP general secretary Ananth Kumar.

A lot of planning seems to have gone into satisfying everyone, including Modi’s adversaries and other dissenting members. A flurry of meetings through the day ensured all ruffled feathers were smoothened and everything fell into place.

All stakeholders, including the party’s ideological mentor — the RSS — worked overtime to iron out the differences and save the party the embarrassment of a Goa-like situation created by the absence of an upset Advani.

It was not easy to convince senior leaders to work under Modi or handle election duties apart from their individual election plans.

But the mandate given by the RSS was to take everyone on board by assigning important duties. Senior leaders Joshi, Sushma and Gadkari were given the responsibilities of key sub-committees that will look after the formulation of party’s manifesto, campaign and vision document, but Modi’s stamp is quite visible in each panel.

Besides, chief ministers of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Goa - Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh and Manohar Parrikar, respectively - have been included in the main “Team Modi” along with Sushma, Gadkari, Joshi and senior leaders Arun Jaitley, Ananth Kumar, Thawarchand Gehlot, Venkiah Naidu and Ramlal (general secretary, organisation).

The party will begin its campaign from August.