New Delhi, Jan. 29: The misfortune of having Narendra Modi as his enemy combined with the slur of the sex CD finally cost RSS strongman Sanjay Joshi his high-profile job in the BJP this evening when party president Rajnath Singh announced his new team of office-bearers.

The shuffle in the party’s highest decision-making mechanism was a fine balancing act by Rajnath, in consultation with the RSS.

Joshi’s removal is a case in point. Joshi belongs to Gujarat and was overseeing the party’s organisational work in the state till Modi decided he did not want him around any more.

Many in the party laid the blame for circulation of the sex CD involving Joshi at Modi’s door. Nothing was proved, however, and Madhya Pradesh police, which probed the scandal, concluded it was not Joshi having sex with a woman in the CD.

Joshi had resigned from the party soon after. But Rajnath accommodated him as general secretary (organisation) when the police gave him a clean chit.

However, Rajnath sacked him today in favour of another Sangh veteran, Ram Lal, who was loaned to the BJP by the Sangh last year. The gesture is being interpreted as an exercise to humour Modi.

At the same time, Rajnath has edged Modi out of the central parliamentary board. He was the only BJP chief minister on the board. The remaining members were MPs and leaders of both Houses of Parliament.

Sources close to Rajnath said Modi’s removal from the board provides the right balance to Joshi’s ouster that is bound to be seen as an appeasement gesture towards the Gujarat chief minister.

Similarly, Arun Jaitley is now the secretary of the parliamentary board. This is an additional charge he holds, besides being one of the six general secretaries of the party. The downside to this is that Jaitley is no longer the senior spokesperson of the BJP.

Former Union minister and Rajya Sabha MP Ravi Shankar Prasad retains charge as one of the senior spokespersons, besides Prakash Javdekar. The new entrant in the media department is former civil aviation minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy.

“It is part of the balancing act. Jaitleyji is an important leader. So he gets an additional charge. At the same time, the party president is conscious that too many powers are not vested in one person,” a BJP source said.

Maharashtra strongman Gopinath Munde is the predictable entry in place of Pramod Mahajan. After Mahajan was killed last year, the post has been vacant.

Munde has been lobbying to join the BJP central team.

His entry provides an interesting dimension to the caste combination of the high-profile general secretaries’ team. There are two Brahmins (Jaitley and Ananth Kumar), two OBCs (Munde and Vinay Katiyar), one Kayastha (Om Prakash Mathur) and one SC (Thawar Chand Gehlot).

Yashwant Sinha is another important addition to Rajnath’s new team as a vice-president. Sinha was sidelined last year after he openly attacked L.K. Advani for his controversial remarks on Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

Sinha had said that Advani’s position as leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha becomes “untenable” in the context of him being sacked as BJP president.

Accommodating him in the new team is part of Rajnath’s efforts to balance the structure of power vis-à-vis Advani.