The party has managed to bring about this transition without bickering or protests
In the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the vice-president’s post looks like another version of the highfalutin “marg darshak mandal” that was created in 2014 to seat the 75-plus leaders who could not find a place in the Narendra Modi government or the party organisation. A vice-president’s post is enshrined in the BJP’s constitution, but with time, it became an ornamental office for the “less important”. In other words, an individual appointed as a vice-president—and the position has once redoubtable chief ministers and central ministers as occupants—is likely to be taken less seriously than a general secretary or a spokesperson. Interestingly, the BJP spokespersons have gone on to rise by virtue of tirelessly defending the indefensible.
So, within days of the BJP losing the assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, the former chief ministers, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Raman Singh and Vasundhara Raje were kicked up as vice-presidents. This despite Chouhan losing MP by a wafer and Vasundhara putting in a reasonably creditable showing amidst strong negative sentiments against her government.
The Opposition leaders in the states were chosen by Amit Shah, the BJP president. In Rajasthan, Gulab Chand Kataria, the incumbent, is a Vasundhara rival. There was not a whimper of protest, not even from Vasundhara who, in the past, mobilised her supporters when she sniffed a hint of challenge to her power. “Under her stewardship we lost two elections,” a BJP source said, forgetting that the Congress’s Ashok Gehlot, despite taking his party down the tubes the same number of times, bounced back to claim the top job a third time. The Modi-Shah dispensation brooks no shenanigans or shindy even from the “mighty”.
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