VENKAIAH NAIDU PICKLE HOT SOLUTION

Bhartiya Janata Party's former President M Venkaiah Naiduhas emerged as a one-man fire brigade that the party leadership relieson to douse infights in the state units.The latest infight he resolved on Sunday was to let Bihar Deputy ChiefMinister Sushil Kumar Modi to continue in the post. BJP PresidentRajnath Singh and senior party leader Lal Krishna Advani asked him toresolve the issue.The leadership was worried that some very senior state leaders of theparty were up in arms against Modi that may affect the party'sprospects in the Lok Sabha elections. A meeting of the top partyleaders here last week failed to sort out the problem and henceVenkaiah Naidu came in.He summoned all the MLAs and MLCs of the state and 67 of 69 came toDelhi to decide the fate of Modi through secret ballot to find out if
he had really become a liability. And, the answer was big "No",silencing the dissidents at least for the time being.The other day, Venkaiah Naidu was rushed to Indore to resolve adispute in the Madhya Pradesh unit. And, the same sort of problem inTamil Nadu made him fly to Madurai via Mumbai. The party sources pointout that whenever internal fights break out in the party, Advani andRajnath Singh at once think of Venkaiah Naidu and nobody else.Venkaiah Naidu holds no post in the party but still he heads the mostimportant central election management committee that charts the BJP'spoll strategy.------------------------------------------

Six months after a coup spoilt by Goa Governor S C Jamir, astate BJP delegation led by former chief minister and now oppositionleader in the state assembly, on Monday submitted over two lakhsignatures demanding his ouster.Just two days after the Congress government headed by Digambar Kamarcompleted a year in office surviving two coups, Parrikar toldreporters that the memorandum submitted to the President shows how"reckless and partisan" the Governor was to help the government thathad reduced to a minority.The Governor, who is a former Congress chief minister of Nagaland, hadsaved the government by proroguing the Assembly session on the ChiefMinister's advice, after it was reduced to a minority due toresignation of three ministers and withdrawal of support by threeother MLAs."We request you to kindly inquire into the above episode and initiateappropriate steps to replace the Governor of the state of Goa, in theinterest of maintaining high dignity of the post of Governor," thememorandum said.BJP spokesman Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who is also incharge of the partyaffairs in Goa, said the BJP was not sitting idle after the Governorwent out of his way to help the Kamat government. Signatures of twolakh Goans demanding removal of the Governor were collected during the campaign launched through street corner meetings across the state, hesaid."We were forced to initiate this campaign due to reckless and partisanbehaviour of the Governor, in the manner not imagined by foundingfathers of the Constitution," Parrikar said after meeting thePresident.