New Delhi, Aug. 6: For the first time, the BJP has appointed leaders prabharis (in-charge) of their home states.

Uttar Pradesh strongman Kalyan Singh has replaced Kalraj Mishra, who has been shifted to Rajasthan and Delhi, while Pramod Mahajan will go to Maharashtra, where Singh was in charge.

Eyebrows were raised when Mishra got the job a few months ago. The BJP had said he would hold the post temporarily till the Lok Sabha elections, after which the party organisation would be reconstituted.

The practice of appointing prabharis from outside the states stemmed from the belief that they would take a more objective view of politics and would be unaffected by groupism.

While there was no resistance to Mahajan’s appointment — it was announced last month as poll-headed Maharashtra needed an in-charge immediately — Singh’s was frowned at for two reasons. He had left the BJP and returned just before the elections, so there was a cloud of suspicion over his “loyalty”.

There was also a question mark over Singh’s contribution to the party’s performance in the elections, which plummeted to an all-time low of 10 seats. His personal performance was not too encouraging either — Singh won his seat by a slim margin of 16,000.

The yardstick for appointing Singh was apparently “social balance”. Since Kesri Nath Tripathi, a Brahmin, was recently made the state chief, party leaders felt a prabhari from the backward caste would set the caste equation right.

Although Singh had the backing of the leaders who matter in Uttar Pradesh — Tripathi, Mishra and Rajnath Singh — sources admitted there was a fear that he might play up the backward caste lobby against the upper caste and upset the BJP’s attempts to achieve “social harmony”.

Singh’s appointment was finally cleared by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who was instrumental in bringing him back to the BJP.

Among the other prabharis given important states are Arun Jaitley (Madhya Pradesh and Bihar), Rajnath Singh (Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh) and Bal Apte (Andhra Pradesh).

Sushil Modi has been put in charge of Bengal, Padmanabha Acharya has got Tamil Nadu and the former editor of RSS journal Organiser, Seshadri Chari, is the Uttaranchal prabhari.