BJP silences partymen to make Maya smile

Keen on keeping UP Chief Minister Mayawati in good humour, the BJP high command here today administered a snub to party leaders of the state...

Keen on keeping UP Chief Minister Mayawati in good humour, the BJP high command here today administered a snub to party leaders of the state for criticising her actions in public.

UP Urban Development Minister Lalji Tandon has been critical of recent punitive transfers of IAS and IPS officers, while former Union minister Sanjay Singh has been running a campaign against the Chief Minister’s decision to rename Amethi as Chhatrapati Shahuji Nagar. Singh’s wife, Amita Singh, is Minister of State for Technical Education in the Mayawati government.

RSS man replaces BJP’s Jammu and Kashmir unit chief

NEW DELHI: BJP president M. Venkaiah Naidu has replaced J-K unit chief Daya Shankar Kotwal with Nirmal Singh, party gen secy Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said here on Thursday. He said Kotwal had submitted his resignation after the Assembly poll results were declared. He was asked to hold on till the party decided on his successor. Nirmal Singh, a Jammu-based professor, is a hardcore RSS man. Devoid of any mass-base, he had unsuccessfully contested for the Assembly once. (ENS)

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Mayawati lent her support to the BJP in the Gujarat elections by campaigning for it along with Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee and supporting 151 of its 182 candidates. The BJP currently looks at her as a long-term ally, not just in UP, but in other states as well. The BSP has a sizeable influence in Madhya Pradesh, pockets of support in Rajasthan and some presence in Himachal Pradesh. All these states are scheduled to go to the polls in the coming year.

BJP general secretary Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi took an exception to the remarks of Tandon and Sanjay Singh and declared, while talking to The Indian Express, here today: ‘‘Let nobody be in any doubt; the BJP and the BSP are committed to fight the next Lok Sabha elections together in UP. The alliance is there to stay. The ministers are bound by the rule of a collective responsibility. They can articulate their views only at an appropriate forum, and in this case, the Cabinet. In the case of others, any complaint that they may have, should be conveyed to the party leadership.’’

Tandon, when asked about the disquiet in the UP bureaucracy over a spate of transfers, had said at a press conference here on December 24 that ‘‘just as political instability affects development, so does bureaucratic instability.’’

He also announced that he would take up the issue with Mayawati. Naqvi said: ‘‘It is the prerogative of the Chief Minister to transfer officers. We do not approve of ministers airing their views on the issue.’’

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Apart from Sanjay Singh, BJP general secretary Rajnath Singh has opposed the change in the name of Amethi. Naqvi said he is not aware of it.

Meanwhile in Lucknow, in a rejoinder to the BJP’s criticism of frequent administrative reshuffles, the BSP today asked its party leaders not to make ‘‘irresponsible statements’’ against the spirit of the coalition but give constructive support in running the government.

‘‘Senior BJP leaders and ministers criticising transfer of officials are working against the spirit of the coalition and should desist from making such irresponsible statements which cause unnecessary controversies,’’ senior BSP leader and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sukhdev Rajbhar said in a release here.

Rajbhar claimed that Mayawati had always worked for solving the problems of coalition partners, which was evident when she took steps to redress the grievances of dissident BJP MLAs.