The compromised candidate

A new state BJP chief defuses Raje-Shah tensions -for now.

The compromised candidate
Saini with CM Raje at a party event. (Photo by Purushottam Diwakar)

The state BJP finally has a new president in Rajya Sabha member Madan Lal Saini, thus ending the impasse between chief minister Vasundhara Raje and the party high command that has persisted ever since Ashok Parnami was asked to quit in the wake of the byelection debacle in April.

BJP chief Amit Shah has evidently elected to play safe, appeasing the RSS while trying not to ruffle Raje, who was firm on not bringing in a state president who would undermine her own position or disturb caste equations in the state.

Saini is a grassroots leader who has been with the Jan Sangh and RSS since 1952. He comes from the Mali OBC community, thus satisfying Raje's concerns of not having a man from the Jats or Rajputs. But Saini's political acumen is questionable. He has won just one assembly poll in 1990. He's lost two Lok Sabha and an assembly election since.

That said, he has hit the ground running and used his first public address to exhort partymen to shed their grievances and work for the party. "You must realise that being in the party that is in power has its own significance and satisfaction," the new president said, urging the BJP's rank and file to aim for 180 seats in the 200-member Rajasthan assembly. The satta (betting) market too has responded, improving the BJP's prospects from 52 seats in the wake of the byelection disaster in February, to 78 this June.

Saini has started touring Rajasthan to meet party veterans even as Raje raised monthly pensions to those arrested during the Emergency from Rs 1,200 to Rs 4,000. Meanwhile, her not cowing down to the Modi-Shah duo's purported interference in the state BJP could see the emergence of new equations within the party. That said, Raje has pulled out all the stops to ensure Prime Minister Narendra Modi's July 7 visit to Jaipur is a grand success. For the rally in the city where the BJP plans to showcase how its government has changed people's lives, Raje's people are gathering beneficiaries in large numbers.

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