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After 6 years, ‘star of Gujarat’ returns to centrestage
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, march 31
The decision to re-induct Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi into the all-powerful BJP Parliamentary Board has once again turned the spotlight on a leader whose supporters see in him the party’s prime ministerial candidate in the Lok Sabha elections.

Seeking to usher in a new team just before the Hindu New Year on April 10, the BJP chief Rajnath Singh brought back Modi six years after he dropped him from the Board. The significance of the move is not lost since the BJP leaders responding to the growing drumbeats within the party suggesting Modi be projected as the Prime Minister has been that it is for the Parliamentary Board to decide.

Will Modi present the BJP with a ‘fait accompli’ situation? Well these are early days yet and Modi and his vociferous band of supporters are bound to be excited at the signals that the new BJP chief gave by inducting, among others, some staunch supporters of the Gujarat Chief Minister - Amit Shah and Smriti Irani - in the recast team.

The BJP appeared to play down the importance of his induction seeking to make it appear routine with spokesperson Prakash Javadekar insisting that Narendra Modi is the senior most Chief Minister of the BJP and achieved great success in his state. “He is the most popular leader in the BJP. He has become an icon of non-corrupt good governments,” Javadekar said.

The Congress party reacted with gusto as Union Minister Kapil Sibal charging that the Bharatiya Janata Party succumbed to pressure by Modi feeling that he would challenge the party itself.

“The real challenge is Modi's challenge to the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is Modi who is seeking to take over the party and once Modi takes over the party there will be no Bharatiya Janata Party, because Modi's brand of politics has nothing to do with ideology”, Sibal was quoted as saying by a news agency.

Congress spokesperson Rashid Alvi insisted that the challenge for the new team under Rajnath Singh will be the Karnataka Assembly elections in May.

The Congress is gung-ho about the May 5 polls as it feels the party can wrest power from the Bharatiya Janata Party, beleaguered as the party is after the exit of the Lingayat leader BS Yeddyurapppa to form the Karnataka Janata Party.

The challenge before Modi is to ensure that his plan of being seen as the natural choice as the lead campaigner is chiselled with dexterity as a section within the top echelons of the party is not comfortable with the options.