The election of M. Venkaiah Naidu to the post of Vice-President has left an important vacancy on the BJP’s parliamentary board, the party’s highest decision-making body. Several seniors in the party and government are in the race for the post.
Apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief Amit Shah, the parliamentary board now has Cabinet Ministers Rajnath Singh, Arun Jaitley, Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, J.P. Nadda, Ananth Kumar and Thawar Chand Gehlot; Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan; and BJP’s general secretary (organisation) Ram Lal.
Sources say there are two schools of thought with regard to who could fill the vacancy. “One school of thought veers towards someone like Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar who has not only held multiple terms as Chief Minister but was also Defence Minister in the Union government earlier. The others want someone from within the party, who enjoys the confidence of Amit bhai ,” a senior office-bearer of the party said.
Under the BJP’s constitution, the national executive constitutes the parliamentary board with the party president as chairman and 10 members, including the parliamentary party leader. It also stipulates that the party chief then has to nominate one of the general secretaries to act as secretary of the board.
When Mr. Shah had constituted the board after he took over as party chief, he had removed former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and senior leaders L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi and brought in Mr. Chouhan.
Multiple elections soon
With Assembly polls in Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram due in the next few months, the parliamentary board becomes crucial in terms of distribution of ticket, as it has a final say in these matters.
“Looking at the piecemeal way in which Amit bhai has filled in positions in the party hierarchy, he may well decide to take a call after the Gujarat polls,” the office-bearer said.
