New Delhi, July 9
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s close confidante Amit Shah was officially named as the national BJP president this afternoon.

Shah (50) replaces Home Minister Rajnath Singh who announced that he was stepping down as the party president. Declaring the controversial Gujarat strongman as his successor, Rajnath lauded his management skills and credited him with the party’s success in Uttar Pradesh in the Lok Sabha elections.

The decision to appoint Shah was taken at a meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Board. The meeting was attended by top party leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, LK Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, M Venkaiah Naidu, Nitin Gadkari and Sushma Swaraj.

The formal announcement ended weeks of speculation over names of probable candidates for the top party post which included Himachal Pradesh leader JP Nadda and Modi's key man Om Mathur.

Shah, the youngest president of the party, has his task cut out. He is expected to deliver for the party in Haryana, Maharashtra and Delhi, which go to the polls in October/November. Elections in Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir will be held next year. These Assembly elections will be the BJP’s first test after its thumping victory in the Lok Sabha elections.

Shah, sources said, would reconstitute his team which may include some new and old faces. Many BJP office-bearers, including Smriti Irani, Ananth Kumar, Piyush Goyal, Uma Bharti and Kalraj Mishra, are now ministers in the Modi government.

To accommodate Shah in the Parliamentary Board, one of the members may be asked to make way. Sources say it could be either of the two general secretaries on board the key panel — Ananth Kumar or Thawar Chand Gehlot, both ministers in the Modi government.

A senior BJP leader said: “The aim was to ensure that the BJP returns to power in 2019. It required a strong leadership which would keep the party enthused and vibrant without posing a threat to Modi.”

“Modi could not have hoped for a better person as the party president. With Shah at the helm, the government and the party will speak in one voice. The negative is that there will be no resistance from the party against government decisions," he said.

Ahmedabad, July 9
Gujarat’s domination over the BJP is now complete with former Minister of State for Home Amit Shah taking over as the party’s national president. A person who never handled the party’s state or even a district unit, except being once the president of the state unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students’ wing of the BJP, Amit Shah is now saddled with the responsibility of running the national party and sustain the meteoric rise the party witnessed during the Lok Sabha elections.

The BJP’s owes its rise in Gujarat to Modi-Shah duo, who were able to cement the gains the party made during the tenure of the former founder leader Keshubhai Patel as the Chief Minister in 1995 and again in 1998, shutting all the challenges from the Congress. At Modi’s behest, Keshubhai made Shah the chairman of the state-owned Gujarat State Financial Corporation in the mid-nineties, which had a lot of influence on the industrial sector.

Shah not only showed his skill as a good organiser and fundraiser for the party, he also managed to dry up the Congress’ resources in the state and divert the funds to the BJP. To an extent, both Shah and his political mentor Modi rose in the party ranks through organising rath yatras. Like Modi demonstrated his skill as the “sarathi” of veteran leader LK Advani’s Ram rath yatra and later Murli Manohar Joshi’s rally from Kerala to Kashmir, Shah’s best opportunity to show his organising skills came in the 2002 “Gujarat Gaurav Rathyatra” of Modi that virtually sealed the Congress fate in Gujarat.

Much maligned from the post-Godhra riots in February-March, 2002, Modi and the BJP’s stake depended on “Gujarat Gaurav” rallies that took Modi through the length and breadth of the state and Shah, along with the former national vice-president Purshottam Rupala, showed his skills of managing a mega event for the party.

Though they were known to each other since the early eighties, Shah came close to Modi with the “Gujarat Gaurav” rally. After the December 2002 state Assembly elections, Shah was inducted into the Cabinet by Modi as the Minister of State for Home, the office he held till 2009 when he was forced to quit after being chargesheeted by the CBI in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case.

He also managed to erode the Congress influence from various co-operative banks, and through these control over the farmer vote bank, systematically reducing the Congress’ vote share from the farm sector.

It was Shah again who later lured Amin to the BJP fold breaking the backbone of the Congress on the eve of the December 2012 Assembly elections and ensuring third straight victory for Modi in the state. Shah took over as the president of the GCA after Modi resigned from the post after becoming the Prime Minister. It was his organising skills and Modi’s confidence that the party made him the in-charge of the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh. In UP, Shah apparently followed the rules that Modi had set for the BJP in Gujarat — personal contacts and optimum booth management — and saw the party come out with flying colours.