Is the Tamil Nadu unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) going to get a chief anytime soon? Or is the state so unimportant to the party that it really doesn’t matter whether there is a chief in place or not? The position has been vacant since Tamilisai Soundararajan was appointed governor of Telangana in September. Former Union minister and the BJP’s former chief of the Tamil Nadu unit, Pon Radhakrishnan and BJP state unit’s vice president and former state minister Nainar Nagenthiran flew to Delhi last week to hold consultations after they were summoned. From reports in local media, it seems that instead of having one president, the party might decide to have four working presidents who will be responsible for four regions in the state to beef up the BJP’s prospects. The party’s vice-president, B T Arasakumar, (one of many vice presidents) who earned the wrath of the leadership for praising M K Stalin’s leadership skills earlier this month, joined the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) last week.
Problem of plenty
And if the BJP’s Tamil Nadu unit is headless, the Congress seems to have many generals and no soldiers. The party’s Bihar unit, for instance, not only has a President but four working presidents. The Chhattisgarh unit has a president and a working president (which begs the question as to what the president actually does, if it is the working president who does all the work). The Delhi unit has a president and three working presidents. The Gujarat unit has a president and two working presidents. And the Jharkhand unit has a president and five working presidents. Amazing!
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