NEW DELHI, OCT 22: Separate meetings of Union Transport Minister Rajnath Singh, UP Chief Minister Ram Prakash Gupta, state BJP chief Kalraj Mishra and State Urban Affairs Minister Lalji Tandon, with Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee in Mumbai has again sparked off speculations about a change of leadership in Uttar Pradesh.Vajpayee is learnt to be unhappy at Gupta's performance during past one year and has even hinted to Gupta during their Mumbai meeting about possibility of his replacement after Diwali, BJP sources said.Dissatisfied with the way Gupta was running the Government, BJP's allies in UP - Loktantrik Congress, Jantantrik BSP, Janata Dal (U) and Samata Party - too were demanding a change in leadership. It is not without significance therefore, that Rajeev Shukla, a Loktantrik Congress Rajya Sabha member, called on Vajpayee in Breach Candy Hospital just before Singh and Tandon met him earlier this week.Vajpayee reportedly discussed the issue of leadership change with Home Minister LK Advani who summoned Mishra to Delhi on Wednesday to deliberate on the move in detail.Senior leaders of JD (U) and Samata like Nitish Kumar, Sharad Yadav and Digvijay Singh besides Loktantrik Congress leaders are learnt to be in favour of a joint campaign with the BJP, for next year's Assembly elections in the State, if the Chief Minister was replaced.The need for Gupta's replacement was felt due to wafer-thin majority of only one vote the BJP-led Government would be reduced to after Uttaranchal was carved out next month. The party would then require a more dynamic Chief Minister than the septuagenarian Gupta, to sustain its Government for next one year, BJP sources claimed.Another hint about an imminent change in U.P. came due to the delay in appointment of a new Chief Secretary of the state since the present incumbent Yogendra Narain has been shifted to the Centre as Defence Secretary, after handing over his charge to the additional Chief Secretary.The Prime Minister apparently wants the new Chief Minister to appoint a chief secretary of his choice, claimed senior BJP sources adding that even Cabinet secretariat - managing the Civil Services cadre - has been briefed about it.According to senior BJP leaders, Rajnath Singh was the hot favourite to replace Gupta though Tandon was also in running for the post on the claim that he was neither Rajput nor Brahmin and his appointment would polarise the entire upper caste towards the BJP.There are indications that Gupta, may be accommodated as Governor of one of the three newly-formed States.State BJP leaders however, are wary of a negative fall-out of a change of Chief Minister on the elections to municipal corporations due in UP on November 20 and 23.
