After the Assembly poll debacle, the Bihar unit of the Bhartiya Janata Party is set for a major reshuffle with several names doing the rounds for the State party president.
The tenure of the incumbent State president Mangal Pandey ends on January 15. The process for the organisational polls in the party will commence and end by March-end, said party vice-president Lal Babu Rai.
Earlier, the party had indicated an overhaul in the State unit by appointing an EBC party leader Prem Kumar as Leader of Opposition in the Assembly in place of senior party leader Nand Kishore Yadav.
Several names of leaders like Rajendra Singh who has very strong RSS links, former MLC Harendra Pratap, Maharajganj MP Janardan Singh Sigriwal, Nawada MP Giriraj Singh, Buxar MP Ashwani Choubey and party leader Vinod Narayan Jha are being mentioned for the post of State party president. If party sources are to be believed, the top leadership has decided to make major changes in the faction-ridden State unit, “to boost the sagging morale of the party leaders and workers and also to consolidate its traditional vote bank.”
Mr. Pandey’s chances of re-election appear bleak as he is widely known as a protégé of former Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi. “And, it’s an open secret that the Bihar BJP is sharply divided between pro- and anti-Sushil Modi camp,” a party leader said.
