THE RUMBLINGS WITHIN

EVEN AS THE BJP’S EXPANSIONIST DRIVE CONTINUES AT A NATIONAL LEVEL, IT IS BATTLING ATTRITION IN SEVERAL KEY STATES IT RULES, INCLUDING SOME THAT GO TO POLLS EARLY NEXT YEAR

- ANILESH S. MAHAJAN

0n May 8, the BJP top brass, including party chief J.P. Nadda, Union home minis­ter Amit Shah and general secretary (organisation) B.L. Santhosh, went into a huddle with Prime Minis­ter Narendra Modi. They had to decide on the party’s pick to lead the As­ sam government—incumbent chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal or his challenger Himanta Biswa Sarma. Sarma’s political acumen, his hold over Assam’s politics and his contributions in helping the BJP spread its wings in the Northeast were in no doubt, but then Sonowal was equally popular in the state.

The dilemma was justifying the change in leadership just after retaining power in the ass­embly poll. The central leadership decided to bite the bullet and go with challenger Sarma; Sonowal will reportedly be “adjusted” in the Union cabinet soon. To be fair, the BJP had not projected either as CM candidate, yet it was assumed the incumbent would continue in office. Two months before this, the central leadership had replaced Uttarakhand chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat with the low­profile Tirath Singh Rawat after state legisla­ tors rebelled against the former CM. In November 2020, the party pulled Bihar deputy CM Sushil Modi to the Centre after he had successfully led the party in the assembly poll in alliance with Nitish Kumar’s JD(U). These are just some of the glar­ ing examples of the BJP not hesitating to shake up things in the states it rules if it does not fit the central leadership’s scheme of things.