Rajnath, Kalyan

New Delhi/Lucknow, Jan. 30: BJP president Rajnath Singh today named former chief minister Kalyan Singh the party’s candidate to again head the Uttar Pradesh government as the two leaders, hardly best of friends, re-launched a march in a show of amity.

“Kalyan Singh has been the best chief minister of Uttar Pradesh,” Rajnath said while launching the “nyay yatra” to build the momentum for the coming state polls.

“He will address all your problems if he is brought back to power as head of the new state government.”

Analysts saw the speech as a move to placate Kalyan, who is not known to be ecstatic about Rajnath’s recent coronation and had also reportedly refused to lead the march.

Rajnath, however, persuaded Kalyan to change his mind and even dropped in at his Delhi house.

The BJP chief denied that Kalyan was unhappy with his appointment as party president. “Kalyan Singhji and I share a good relationship. He was happy about my appointment as party chief. There is nobody like him in Uttar Pradesh. He can make immense contribution to the party’s revival in the state,” he said.

Kalyan, too, played his part.

“Some people are spreading a wrong impression that BJP leaders are not seeing eye to eye,” he said. The former chief minister also vowed to put the state “back in order” within 90 days of coming to power as he and Rajnath launched the march from Dadri, near the border with Delhi.

The yatra, which Rajnath started after the murder of a BJP legislator, had been called off in December on the eve of the party’s organisational shake-up.

Kalyan also declared that the BJP was committed to building the Ram temple in Ayodhya.

Although he agreed to flag off the march, Kalyan had recently ruffled BJP feathers by referring to expelled leader Uma Bharti as his “daughter” and called her a “mass leader” and “dedicated worker”.

Uma, on her part, said Kalyan was like her “father” and his stature in the party was “equivalent” to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani, the man whom Rajnath succeeded.

Kalyan’s praise of Uma led some in the party to brand him a rebel. But Rajnath now appears to have won over the influential heartland leader.