Nadda part of Modi Cabinet, Anurag Thakur dropped

Subhash Rajta

Shimla, June 9

BJP chief JP Nadda took oath as a Union Cabinet Minister in the Narendra Modi-led NDA government in New Delhi today. The induction of Nadda as a Cabinet Minister has in all probability landed a knockout punch to Anurag Thakur’s hopes of getting a ministerial berth.

Thakur was the high-profile Minister for Information and Broadcasting in the last term of the NDA government. Having won his fifth consecutive election from the Hamirpur Parliamentary constituency and perceived to be quite close to the Prime Minister and Amit Shah, Thakur was seen as a strong contender for the ministerial berth this time too.

The BJP top leadership, however, have preferred Nadda over him. And it’s highly improbable that there would be two ministers from this tiny state that has just four Lok Sabha seats. The rumour mill is already in an overdrive about what could have led to the omission of Thakur, whose rise as a sports administrator and a politician has been nothing short of spectacular over the last decade or so.

Some political analysts feel that the results of the latest Parliamentary elections and the Assembly bypoll may not have sent out right signals even though he won his seat with a handsome margin. From Sujanpur, his home Assembly constituency, Thakur secured the highest margin, but the BJP candidate Rajinder Rana lost the bypoll on this seat.

The history between Thakur’s father Prem Kumar Dhumal and Rana (Rana had defeated Dhumal in the 2017 Assembly elections) may have complicated the result further. However, it’s also a fact that both Dhumal and Thakur campaigned quite extensively for Rana.

“The defeat of Rana could be due to the slogan of ‘one vote for PM and one for CM’ in the constituency more than anything else. After all, the CM also comes from the Parliamentary constituency,” said a Hamirpur resident.

Having missed the ministerial bus, what waits the 49-year-old Thakur? If the sources in the BJP are to be believed, Thakur could get a key position in the party at the national level.