New Delhi, March 14
BJP’s top decision-making body—the Parliamentary Board— has appointed Home Minister Amit Shah as the observer for the election of the leader of the legislature party in key state Uttar Pradesh. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, meanwhile, will oversee the process in Uttarakhand where the BJP is facing a rather tricky situation so far as the choice of the Chief Minister is concerned.
While the party returned to power, the incumbent CM under whom it contested, Pushkar Singh Dhami lost his seat.
Party vice president Raghuvar Das is the co-observer for UP and union minister Meenakshi Lekhi for Uttarakhand. For Goa the Parliamentary Board has selected union ministers Narendra Singh Tomar and L Murugan and for Manipur, union ministers Nirmala Seetharaman and Kiran Rijiju.
The decision was announced following the two-day visit of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to the Capital where he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Adityanath also met top leaders of the party, including chief JP Nadda and union ministers Amit Shah, Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Dharmendra Pradhan and Anurag Thakur. While the matter regarding the top post in UP is “settled”, sources say the Prime Minister wants the “new Cabinet to have a fresh, all-inclusive look” and the party to take care of all issues keeping in mind the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.
“The PM wants caste/religious groups who did not vote for the BJP or were not its part in the recently-concluded elections, to be encouraged to come with it. He also wants the new Cabinet to be all-inclusive and drawn in mind caste-balance and other issues. He wants the BJP to become the first choice of all caste/religious groups, all across,” they said. The BJP faced a direct contest against the Akhilesh Yadav-led Samajwadi Party, leading to consolidation of the anti-BJP votes in UP—a situation the party would like to avoid in future.
In Uttarakhand, though the BJP created history by retaining power, Dhami lost his Khatima seat, putting the party in a rather piquant situation. Amid speculations on whether the central leadership will “back Dhami”, sources say the situation is not “so clear”.
While some BJP MLAs have “offered to vacate seats to put Dhami back at the helm of affairs”, names are also doing the rounds for the top job there. So far as Goa is concerned the BJP is technically one short of a simple majority. However, two MLAs of MGP, the alliance partner of TMC, and Independentshave extended support, according to CM Pramod Sawant, making the process of the government formation quite smooth.
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