Gadkari out, Rajnath Singh set to be new BJP president

DRAMA In last-minute twist, former UP CM emerges frontrunner as RSS has final say

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) dumped its scamtainted president Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday, turning to the safe choice of veteran Rajnath Singh and underlining rifts within the party ahead of a crucial 18 months of state and national elections.

The night before he was due to be nominated for a second term, Gadkari quit after income-tax raids on companies connected to the Purti group left his position untenable and cost him the crucial support of the BJP's ideological patron, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS).

The return of political heavyweight Rajnath — who was BJP president from 2006 to 2009 — complicates the choice of the BJP's prime ministerial candidate in 2014, because Rajnath has in the past shared an uneasy relationship with Gujarat CM Narendra Modi, currently a favourite for the mantle.

Who will be the face of the party in the general elections will almost certainly be decided by the RSS, which once again showed its clout in BJP appointments by pushing through the choice of Rajnath for president once it became clear that returning Gadkari was becoming impossible.

The 61-year-old Rajnath is set to become the consensus choice president on Wednesday, when the nominations for the post close.

HT was the first to report, on January 11, that Gadkari's prospects were getting weaker due to opposition from top BJP leader L K Advani.

Gadkari’s exit was the culmination of a dramatic day marked by Advani sticking to his opposition to a second term, and another top leader, Yashwant Sinha, signalling his interest in the job by procuring a nomination form. A third leader, lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani, complained he was denied one.