BJP removes Katiyar as UP BJP chief

In an inexplicable move, chief of the Uttar Pradesh Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) unit Vinay Katiyar was today sacked from the presidentship and replaced by former UP Speaker and defeated Lok Sabha candidate from Machchlishahar Kesrinath Tripathi. A formal announcement is expected soon.

Tripathi and former Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi are viewed as rivals for the same slot of the leadership of the Brahmins in UP. It was former Deputy Prime Minister LK Advani who informed Katiyar that he was going to be replaced.

Tripathi came third in the Machchlishahar, yielding the seat to the Bahujan Samaj Party. He has been Speaker of the Assembly for the last eight years, a job widely perceived as being administrative.

How he is going to revive the BJP's fortunes in a state that is crucial for the party's growth and where the BJP forfeited its deposit in 106 Assembly segments out of 403 in the last Lok Sabha elections is a moot question. Parties lose their deposit when they fail to get more than or equal to 16.66 per cent of the total valid votes polled.

Tripathi's appointment shows how desperate the BJP is to get back its old vote bank. Party sources said not just Brahmins and Thakurs but also Vaishyas voted against the BJP.

Katiyar, a Kurmi, was prominent in the Babri Masjid demolition movement and as demonstration effect, was responsible, along with Kalyan Singh, for the saffron radicalisation of the Other Backward Caste's in UP. By replacing him with a Brahmin, untried and untested in party politics, the BJP is sending a message about a new caste combination in the state.

Katiyar, sources say, is unhappy at the move and is planning to ask the central party leadership how it was attributing the responsibility of the electoral defeat to him.

Katiyar feels the appointment has been made to cut him to size after the re-entry of the other big OBC leader in UP, Kalyan Singh. Singh had two perceived rivals - Chhatarpal Singh who vacated his Bulandshahar seat, for Kalyan Singh who has now been pacified by a seat in the Rajya Sabha; and Katiyar, who stayed away from Kalyan Singh's famous birthday celebrations when he was on the verge of coming back to the BJP.