BJP’s president in waiting has ample experience in running a distillery, sugar mills and PVC pipe units. But now the opportunity is
to build on an organisation and party. The challenge is to raise the morale of such a party which in the recent past has only faced defeat and humiliation. In the third week of December, when Gadkari will take over the reins of the party, then his team would have a number of gems. The most important role could go to Sanjay Joshi and then could come the number of Kirit Somaiah and Piyush Goel. Piyush would be installed as the biggest fund raiser of Gadkari and he could be rewarded for his works through a Rajya Sabha membership and he could also be made the national treasurer of the party. Those who are aware of Piyush’s past also recall how the post of Shipping Minister had been snatched within just six months from his father in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Government during the NDA rule because the IB had not give a favourable report. Even then Piyush was actively working for his father. But it is not necessary for the history to repeat itself.

The austerity bug has bitten one and all within the Congress party. With Sonia Gandhi traveling economy class and Rahul Gandhi traveling by Shatabdi Express, the Congressmen are trying to emulate their feet. Poetic renditions are being made on the Congress high command leading by example. But there is the other Congress, which is more popular in the state of its influence, whose leader has always lived an austere life without bringing any moral or other pressure on her colleagues to emulate her lifestyle. The day Rahul Gandhi traveled to Ludhiana by train to make a point in austerity, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee came to inaugurate New Delhi Railway station building in her trademark cotton saree and Hawai chappal sitting on the front seat of a ramshackle small purple colour car with no beacon light. Now who is more austere — Mamata di or the first family of the Congress?

Poor Raj Babbar. He has been called by Sonia Gandhi and told to fight the bye-election from Firozabad. But for fighting this bye-election, the Rs 5 crore fund that the party has given has already fallen prey to several big leaders. Some days ago when some senior leaders like Pramod Tiwari and Salman Khursheed reached there in connection with the preparations for Babbar’s election, Babbar made it clear to them that he would not let this happen that he should contest the election while others walk away with the funds.

Remember when the Bhishma Pitamah of BJP was strongly advocating the need for sending Govindacharya back to the Sangh, at that point of time it was also stated that the post of organisational secretary in the saffron party should be abolished. But today, for giving the Sangh more teeth, there are over 240 organisational secretaries active in
BJP. In the party’s introspection meet at Shimla, Dhumal had openly cried that while there were just four Lok Sabha seats in Himachal, there were still four organisaitonal secretaries there. Shivraj and Raman Singh are as it is already upset with them because the organisation secretary gobbles up every transfer or posting before it reaches the Chief Minister. The powerful IAS lobby of the State also moves around these influential organisation secretaries. Gujarat is the only State where they have no say. So the party has now made up its mind that the strength of the organisational secretaries would be reduced from 240 to just two dozen or 24. The idea is good but only if the Sangh would agree.