Major changes expected in BJP leadership; Ram Madhav may come South

Hyderabad: With the elevation of Mr M. Venkaiah Naidu as Vice-President on Friday, there is wide-spread expectation in TS and AP units of the BJP that impending changes at the national level will see Mr Ram Madhav, general secretary in charge of J&K and the northeast, being put in charge of the south. 

The RSS leadership, the key force behind the BJP, is reportedly rooting for Mr Madhav to oversee the south with an eye on strengthening the party.

A faction in the Karnataka BJP requested the leadership to replace the general secretary P. Muralidhar Rao with Mr Madhav.

Directly or indirectly, for the past few years, Mr Venkaiah Naidu has been in charge of the party in the south due to his long association with various state units. Many see Mr Madhav succeeding him. 

Mr Amit Shah has completed three years as BJP president on Thursday. His second term extends till January 2019 and party leaders are expecting major changes in the leadership in the next few days and a total revamp of the party in-charges. 

With the BJP working towards a clean sweep of the southern states, Mr Madhav, an RSS-trained leader, may be the right choice. He wants to expand the party quickly by inducting leaders from different sections of society.

It is known that former Congress minister Kanna Laxminarayana was ad-mitted to the BJP at the behest of Mr Madhav, though he has been sidelined for the last few months. In TS, leaders from other parties have crossed over to the BJP.

Mr Madhav attended, for the first time, the TS BJP executive meeting in Warangal recently and made a few suggestions on strengthening the party - by inducting leaders from various sections, spreading the party ideology and starting agitations against the governments by highlighting their failures etc. 

A state BJP spokesperson said, “Ram Madhav has the capacity and image to effect a total makeover of the BJP in both the states. We expect Amit Shah to put him in charge so that the party will grow in the states both electorally and organisationally.”

It has been decided that in TS the BJP will go it alone in 2019. But in Andhra Pradesh, due to the alliance with the Telugu Desam, it has not decided whether to go it alone in 2019 or in alliance. But BJP leaders in AP feel that for the party to even bargain for more seats, it must first expand its base in the state.