On Wednesday the BJP reshuffled its Parliamentary Board Panel. Shocking the political pandits, Union Minister for Roads Nitin Gadkari has been excluded from this list. Along with Gadkari, Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was out from the panel.
However Gadkari’s exclusion raked up a big debate. From the beginning of the NDA government in 2014, Modi has been maintaining distance from Gadkari. In the Union cabinet, after Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah is the number two. Shah has the grip of all the other ministries and departments but he doesn’t touch Gadkari’s ministry.
Because Nitin Gadkari is one of the prolific leaders who has a strong base and connections with RSS. Modi too never intervenes in the works of Gadkari and that way many thought Modi would not touch Gadkari.
But in a surprise Gadkari has been excluded from the BJP Parliamentary Board Panel and it kind of proved that Modi is feeling insecure of Gadkari’s growing popularity. Political analysts believe that in the current BJP, Gadkari is the only alternative to Modi for the Prime Minister’s chair.
During the 2019 general elections when the Exit Polls results were mixed, the RSS was trying to push Gadkari’s name for the PM’s chair just in case the BJP and its allies fall short of the magic number. But Modi was relieved that the BJP had a clear majority.
Yet many in the BJP still believe that Gadkari is the only alternative to Modi and they suspect that for the same reason Gadkari was excluded from the Parliamentary Board Panel. They believe that Modi sensed a competition from Gadkari who has good rapport with all the union ministers and CMs of BJP and non-BJP ruling states. Besides Gadkari, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s name is being heard everywhere in the BJP and RSS camps.
The fact is if a situation occurs to replace Narendra Modi for the PM position, RSS will definitely bring up a new face from nowhere. It was the same that happened with Modi before the 2014 elections.