Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 17: The union roads and highways minister and former BJP national president and the Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan have been dropped from the BJP’s highest policy making body the central Parliamentary Board in which the former Karnataka chief minister septuagenarian BS Yediyurappa makes a surprise entry.
The Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who recently led the party to a very impressive return to power and was expected to be included in the Parliamentary Board whenever reconstituted, however, did not find a place. The parliamentary board is the top body in the BJP and decides on chief ministers, state chiefs and other key roles.
The BJP national president JP Nadda on Wednesday reconstituted the Parliamentary Board and the Central Election Committee. It was the first reconstitution of the CPB since 2014 when the then president Amit Shah had constituted the Parliamentary Board after the BJP came to power at the centre. In the interim period, the 11-member CPB, who are also the members of the CEC, has developed five vacancies due to the passing away of senior leaders Ananth Kumar in 2018 and Arun Jaitley, and Sushma Swaraj in 2019, election of Venkaiah Naidu as Vice-President of India and the appointment of then union minister Thawarchand Gehlot as the Karnataka Governor.
Gadkari’s exclusion is particularly significant as he is a former president of the party and the party has traditionally kept its former presidents in the decision-making process. Because of his deep connect with the party’s ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Gadkari had stayed put despite the pot-shots he had frequently aimed at his own government. The two other former presidents — Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh continue to be members. The exclusion of Gadkari follows after another former president, L.K. Advani was dropped from the Board. Only Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Amit Shah, Nadda and BJP organisational secretary BL Santosh remained unchanged in the CPB. Yediyurappa’s inclusion acknowledges the fact that he is unlikely to fade into the political sunset anytime soon and is still a force to reckon with in State politics. Yediyurappa has also been made member of the CEC.
Former Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has also been appointed to the Parliamentary Board, party sources saying in a bid to diversify the membership, as he belongs to a tribal community from Assam. The chief of the party’s OBC Morcha and Rajya Sabha MP K. Laxman who belongs to Telangana is another significant inclusion.
For the first ever in the party’s recent history, a Sikh member, Iqbal Singh Lalpura has been appointed to the Board, a nod to the protest movement against the farm laws (which the Union Government repealed) and the political exigencies in Punjab. Other inclusions are Satynarayana Jatiya, former MP and former Union Minister in the Vajpayee Government, and former MP from Mahendragarh in Haryana, Sudha Yadav. Her husband, Deputy Commandant Sukhbir Singh Yadav, of the Border Security Force (BSF), had died fighting Pakistani intruders during the Kargil war.
In the 15 member CEC, the surprise inclusion has been that of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadanvis, an acknowledgement that he needed validation at the national level, in order to offset the disappointment felt by some quarters in Maharashtra BJP over him being overlooked as Chief Minister. BJP’s mahila morcha president, Tamil Nadu MLA Vanathi Srinivasan has also been made a member of the CEC. Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav and senior party leader Om Mathur are the other two members. Former Union Ministers Jual Oram and Shahnawaz Hussain have been dropped.
