New Delhi, January 20 2009: ITS INTERNAL troubles, particularly the latest "rebellion" of former UP chief minister Kalyan Singh, has put a brake on BJP's plans to go about its electoral preparations in a business-like manner getting over with most of its ticket distribution by January itself.

The party's central election committee met on Monday and decided on just 18 names of LS contestants and had to call off its meetings slated for the next two days as state units have not been able to send in their shortlist and BJP leaders are busy fire fighting.

UP remains a persistent area of darkness for BJP even though it is clear that without a good show here, the party's bid for power at the Centre suffers from serious weakness.

But despite efforts to mollify Kalyan Singh by giving a Rajya Sabha ticket to his associate Kusum Rai, the Lodh leader remains in a mood to cause trouble.

Kalyan's opposition to a ticket being given to Ashok Pradhan from Bulandshahr seems rooted in a divide in his own camp.

While Rai is keen to go along with BJP's plans, which include a tie-up with RLD's Ajit Singh, Kalyan's son Rajbir is dissatisfied that his political ambitions have not been catered to.

With Kalyan spreading stories of his cozying up to SP boss Mulayam Singh, the latter has also cleverly sought to sharpen divides by saying that he was willing to give Rajbir a ticket.

BJP has not been able to progress beyond a handful of names which include predictable ones like party chief Rajnath Singh.

The reason trotted out is that "alliances are still to happen, the seat-wise feedback is not been completed yet after delimitation which is necessary for the list of names to come up from the state".

The problem in UP is aggravated by "delay and mishandling" on part of the central leadership, a senior party leader from the state said.

Left with little choice, BJP has been trying to appease Kalyan Singh by trying to persuade him to drop his opposition to Pradhan as well as agree to the larger issue of an alliance with RLD.

Some feel that this will send out "a wrong message" but given that Kalyan Singh, though a diminished force, does command the loyalty of Lodhs, BJP will have to humour him.

Kalyan Singh kept away from the party's Bangalore national executive in September because he was against any tie-up with Ajit Singh's RLD, as that would mean conceding territory in western UP.

Even elsewhere, states like Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, where assembly polls are just over, have not been able to decide on names for the Lok Sabha yet.

Those where the party is part of coalition government like Bihar have not yet discussed the seat sharing between themselves.

BJP on Monday declared the names of Yashwant Sinha (Hazaribagh) and Pashupati Nath Singh (Dhanbad) from Jharkhand, former Manipur CM W Nipamacha Singh (InnerManipur), Satya Pal Jain (Chandigarh) and BJYM Kerala chief K Surendran (Kasargod) .

Other names were K P Sreeshan (Vadakara), V Muraleedharan (Kozhikode), K Janachandran Master (Ponnani), C K Padmanabhan (Pallakad), A N Radhakrishnan (Ernakulam), Rajan Sushant (Kangra), Maheshwar Singh (Mandi), Virendra Kashyap (Shimla-SC), Ramtahal Choudhary (Ranchi), Karia Munda (Khunti-ST), Nilmani Deb (Tripura West), Pulin Behari Dewan (Tripura East-ST) and Natubhai Gomanbhai Patel from Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

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