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    BJP's shift back to the core with Amit Shah at helm

    Synopsis

    Home Minister Amit Shah's term as BJP President may prove to be among the most significant turning points in the evolution of India's right wing politics.

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    Shah ensured every member, starting with him, travelled to different parts, beyond their own area of familiarity.

    Home Minister Amit Shah's term as BJP president may prove to be among the most significant turning points in the evolution of India’s right wing politics - perhaps not as dramatic as the 2014 election victory, but equally impactful in terms of the churn it has effected on India’s political mosaic.

    Just how? Until Shah assumed office, the accepted logic was that the BJP could acquire and stay in power by putting its core ideological issues in the backburner. In other words, political culture of consensus and compromise as articulated during the days of Atal Bihari Vajpayee became the norm.

    It was a model fit for the coalition era, which Shah completely changed. Quite deliberately, he realigned the party with its core ideology. He spoke of it openly, but few believed until he became the Home Minister and moved on withdrawing Article 370 from Jammu & Kashmir. The first winds of change were, however, felt in the party. No member needed convincing on core issues but what Shah prioritised on reorienting the working of the party on the methods of its ideological founders. The concept of pravaas (outside stay), for instance, was diligently followed by its ideological founders like Deen Dayal Upadhyaya and Shyama Prasad Mookherjee who would spend several days on tour in different parts of the country. The concept traces its roots to the RSS, but it had not been adapted to current day politics.

    The BJP of 2000s was very much a Lutyen’s Party with erudite and articulate parliamentarians calling the shots. Shah ensured every member, starting with him, travelled to different parts, beyond their own area of familiarity. These included MPs.

    An important issue in Shah’s period, a point that even PM Narendra Modi alluded to during his address at the anointment of J P Nadda as BJP chief, was the question of how to run the party while in power. Both Modi and Shah established a model of coordination where the party amplified what the government did without a lapse in communication.

    The complementarity of the relationship was reciprocal because the PM too made it a point to attend the Parliamentary Board me-Shah realigned the party with its core ideology. He spoke of it openly, but few believed until he became Home Minister and moved on withdrawing Article 370 from Jammu & Kashmir etings at the BJP party headquarters and not hold it in his residence. This gave a Shah his own status, one which helped him enforce his authority. Along with ideology and method, Shah brought opportunity for many BJP leaders who were languishing on the margins because of having failed the test of patronage. Both Modi and Shah came without baggage and neither did they have any patron in the BJP central leadership to please.

    Shah made a deep dive in search of leaders and launched them into key positions within the party. A completely new second and third rung leadership has now ensconced itself rather firmly, driving his version of the ideology-based party agenda forward. Not many of them, it can safely be said, associate with the BJP’s old-style coalition approach. Interestingly, the search for talent didn’t stop within the BJP. He was practical enough to realise that the party will not be able to expand to the East and South without inducting members from other parties. The entry of Himanta Biswa Sarma in Assam and Mukul Roy in West Bengal are best examples of this approach.

    It’s no secret that some of BJP’s unexpected gains in eastern India were on backs of old rivals. Yet, until now, none of these leaders have been able to rise to institutional positions within the party despite wielding considerable influence.

    In sum, if there is ever a contest, between ideology and practical politics, Shah has been clear that it’s the former which will get primacy. It’s the shift back to the core for which his period at the helm will be marked out, especially when much of the story continues to unfold.


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