Advani

New Delhi, June 5: The BJP top brass today finalised a shuffle of office bearers with an eye on the coming Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Bihar, Jharkhand and Haryana.

Meeting at leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani’s house today, the party also discussed a strategy to press for the removal of six “tainted” ministers from the Manmohan Singh government.

The BJP has toughened its stand against railway minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, coal and mines minister Sibu Soren as well as ministers of state Mohammad Taslimuddin, Jay Prakash Yadav, Prem Gupta and M.A. Fatmi. The party plans to “take up the matter strongly” when the Lok Sabha begins debate on the Presidential address from Tuesday.

The BJP has decided to field new MPs like Navjot Singh Sidhu and Manavendra Singh in the Lok Sabha and S.S. Ahluwalia in the Rajya Sabha.

Today’s meeting was attended by former ministers Jaswant Singh, Sushma Swaraj and K. Ananth Kumar, former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Kalyan Singh as well as Sidhu, Manavendra and Ahluwalia.

“The image of the Manmohan Singh government is suffering with the induction of these tainted ministers and it is also affecting the national prestige and self-respect,” said V.K. Malhotra, the BJP’s deputy leader in the Lok Sabha.

“We will take up the issue of tainted ministers strongly inside and outside Parliament and specially after the manner in which the ruling party members did not allow Advani to speak in the House yesterday,” he said.

National Democratic Alliance leaders will also meet here on Monday to draw up a strategy.

The much-awaited BJP revamp is likely to get under way with party chief M. Venkaiah Naidu making former law minister Arun Jaitley one of the five general secretaries. Jaitley will take the place of Shivraj Chauhan who is likely to be made the BJP’s Madhya Pradesh chief.

Pramod Mahajan, Sanjay Joshi and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi are expected to be retained as general secretaries, sources said.

Party treasurer Ramdas Aggarwal is expected to be elevated to vice-president, with his post going to Tamil Nadu’s Sukumar Nambiar.

Kalyan Singh is tipped to join Bal Apte and Pyarelal Khandelwal as vice-president, with the latter two retaining their posts. Former Union minister Jaskaur Meena is also likely to be made vice-president, replacing Bhavnabehn Chikalia.

Hoping to revive its fortunes in Uttar Pradesh, where it won a mere 10 Lok Sabha seats last month, the BJP is likely to replace Vinay Katiyar as state unit chief with former chief minister Rajnath Singh.

Former information and broadcasting minister Ravi Shankar Prasad is likely to be made a party spokesman.

Sushma Swaraj, who did not want to work under Naidu as he is junior to her, has been made deputy leader of the Rajya Sabha and spokesperson of the parliamentary party.

Malhotra has been made deputy leader of the Lok Sabha and a parliamentary party spokesperson.