Hyderabad: Most of the satraps including incumbent and former chief ministers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had something to take home from the two-day meeting of its top decision-making body — the national executive — that took place in Hyderabad over the weekend.
Former Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje, for instance, had reasons to go back satisfied and reassured. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quite warm to her. “Kaisi hain, Vasundhara ji? Niharika kaisi hai? (How are you, Vasundhara ji? How is Niharika doing?)” he asked her.
Niharika, Raje’s daughter-in-law, was suffering from a serious illness and is recovering now. Niharika’s husband, Dushyant Singh, is a BJP MP. The fact that Modi remembered his wife’s name and inquired about her health was comforting to Raje, who has been at odds with the party high command. “Kucch bhi jaroorat pade, mujhe batayega (let me know if you need anything),” the prime minister is learnt to have told her.
She may need his help more for a different purpose though. She remains the party’s only mass leader in Rajasthan and fancies her chance for a third term in the chief minister’s office next year.
The high command is, however, seeking to sidestep her and promote her rivals. What further strained their relations was when a Dholpur BJP MLA, considered close to Raje, voted for the Congress candidate in the recent Rajya Sabha elections, in which the BJP high command chose to field her old detractor, Ghanshyam Tiwari.
At the Hyderabad meeting though, there were apparent attempts to mollify the former Rajasthan CM. She was chosen to address a press conference, the first outside Rajasthan in a long time, on the first day of the national executive meeting.
But for a Telangana leader, Ramchander Rao, introducing her as “Vijayaraje” twice and party’s media co-incharge Sanjay Mayukh repeatedly interrupting her when she wanted to field questions, Vasundhara Raje’s show was impressive as she was at her eloquent best.
During an online press conference last year when Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri ignored Mayukh’s advice to wind up and continued to field questions, it was suddenly turned off. In Hyderabad, Raje, the party’s national vice-president, looked amused by Mayukh’s gratuitous interventions as she carried on.
At the opening ceremony, she was one of the selected few who were asked to light the lamp. Having made her presence felt in Hyderabad, Raje was immediately back to work in Rajasthan. She returned to Delhi in a Vistara flight and boarded a waiting helicopter to go to Udaipur to condole with the family of Kanhaiya Lal, a tailor who was hacked to death by two Muslim fanatics.
While almost all BJP chief ministers address the national executive, Assam’s Himanta Biswa Sarma stood out. He delivered what a BJP functionary termed as “the most impressive speech after Modiji’s” at the national executive meeting. He said the BJP has started winning Muslim-dominant municipal wards in Assam, which showed that the party-led governments’ welfare works for them were having an impact, according to BJP functionaries who attended the meeting.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath echoed similar views, saying how Muslim women have started voting for the BJP, said the party functionaries.
Sarma’s and Yogi’s views seemed to have hit the right chords as the PM, in his address to the national executive towards the end, endorsed them. He asked party leaders to reach out to deprived sections among the non-Hindus, too. He asked the party to take Christian leaders from Assam to Kerala to showcase what the BJP governments do in the interest of Christians.
Himanta Biswa Sarma was also asked to do the briefing about the party’s political resolution and Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s speech — a job that, in the party’s scheme of things, reflects a leader’s heft.
Other satraps also found a place in the sun in Hyderabad. Karnataka CM Basavaraj Bommai, for instance, was entrusted to second the party’s political resolution, along with Sarma.
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In resolution, a passing reference to Maharashtra
Curiously, the BJP seemed to downplay Maharashtra developments at the Hyderabad meeting attended by the entire top brass. There was just a passing reference to Maharashtra — crunched in a paragraph in the 13-page long political resolution. It mentioned how, for the development of Maharashtra and welfare of the people, the BJP supported Eknath Shinde as the chief minister and Fadnavis took oath as the deputy CM.
“This step has once again proved that the BJP never craves power, but believes in serving the people selflessly and working for their welfare. With the goal of serving the people of Maharashtra under the leadership of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, we will again take the step forward on the path of development and good governance,” stated the political resolution.
So, while the BJP leadership sought credit for ending the “opportunistic and unprincipled alliance” of the Maha Vikas Aghadi, there was no credit to Fadnavis’ leadership or any acknowledgement of his contributions to bringing the party back to power in a politically crucial state. Fadnavis, who proved himself a master strategist by splitting the Shiv Sena and demolishing Uddhav Thackeray’s clout in his own party, was busy mobilising the forces to elect the Assembly Speaker in Mumbai, when the BJP was discussing the political resolution.
In several press conferences addressed by the party’s half-a-dozen top leaders over two days in Hyderabad, there was no mention of how Fadnavis had single-handedly brought the BJP back to power in Maharashtra, only to be instructed by the high command to accept demotion as deputy CM, ostensibly in the party’s larger interest. But there was no mention of Adityanath’s speech in the meeting or his visit to Bhagyalakshmi Temple in Hyderabad either. Party briefings were limited to what Modi, Amit Shah and party president J. P. Nadda had to say.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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