Pavan K Varma | Successors & rising stars: Cabinet rejig to reveal all

When I was posted in our embassy in Moscow in the era of the Soviet Union, one of the key preoccupations of diplomats was to try and figure out who stands where in the ruling hierarchy of power. The ruling Communist party was so publicly opaque in its internal dynamics, that it was difficult to gauge who is in and who is out at any given moment of time. The supremo, the general secretary of the Communist Party, was clearly at the top. But whose fortunes were rising or declining under his supremacy was a matter of constant speculation.

This is a pastime that many political pundits are busy with in India too with regard to the internal power equations within the ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP). Without doubt, Narendra Modi is the undisputed number one. He stands head and shoulders above all the rest. His leadership is unquestioned. His ability to get votes for his party is clearly established. He has no challenger.

But what are the power dynamics in the party under him? Whose stock is rising, and whose is declining? This is a matter of great debate amongst a host of those who claim to be in the know, but the truth is that nobody really does. Is Amit Shah the de facto number two? Or has there recently been a diminution in his status? Is party president, J.P. Nadda, being groomed to take on some of the organisational dominance of Amit Shah? Or, are Mr Nadda, and information and broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur, in the doghouse because of BJP losing the elections in Himachal Pradesh, the state to which both belong? Is environment minister Bhupendra Yadav the new rising star?

Will the party president be changed, or will Mr Nadda be given an extension? His term ends in January 2023, and probably it is too late now to have organisational elections to elect a new president, but who knows? Some observers believe that “Raksha Mantri” Rajnath Singh,is being persuaded to assume the presidency of the party. Is Rajnath the de jure number two in the government? Or does he have only token primacy, so long as he is “well behaved” and does not show signs of unwarranted ambition? And what about UP chief minister (CM) Yogi Adityanath? Is he Mr Modi’s man, or Amit Shah’s, or loyal to both, or a threat to each, especially Mr Shah? After all, he has won successively and with large margins in UP, which sends the largest number of MPs to Parliament, and appears to be a more hardline Hindu than even the PM.

There are other intriguing questions. Will Madhya Pradesh CM, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, jettisoned unexpectedly from the party’s apex body, the parliamentary board, continue as CM? Or does the party “high command” want a change? If so, what is the reason? Is it because he has won a major state repeatedly, and could be a threat in the future? And, who is likely to be his successor? Is Jyotiraditya Scindia a contender? What is likely to be the fate of Vasundhara Raje in Rajasthan? Rumours are rife that she is not in the good books of both Mr Modi and Mr Shah, and that someone like Gajendra Singh Shekhawat could be the next CM candidate. If that were to happen, what will Vasundhara do? Take it lying down, or rebel? With the elections in Karnataka coming up, will Basavaraj Bommai, the CM of a rather discredited government, be retained or dropped? Former Karnataka CM, B.S. Yediyurappa, has been elevated to the party’s parliamentary board, but have he and national organisation secretary B.L. Santosh, also a member of the board, buried their alleged earlier rivalry?

Piyush Goyal is a competent minister, but did not get the finance portfolio, for reasons that everybody seems to know. Nirmala Sitharaman has proved her critics wrong, but have her detractors reconciled to her meteoric rise? One of the problems is that nobody in the BJP really knows when the axe will fall. Ravi Shankar Prasad, the ubiquitous face of the party on TV, did not expect to be unceremoniously dropped from the Cabinet. Nor did Prakash Javadekar. What is to be the fate of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, the only Muslim minister in the Cabinet, who was not given a Rajya Sabha berth? Changes in the BJP are made surgically and drastically. CM Vijay Rupani, and his entire Cabinet in Gujarat, were dismissed overnight. Bhupendra Patel is clearly the new favourite, but whose writ prevailed in the selection of tickets for the recent Gujarat elections, Mr Modi’s or Mr Shah’s?

Discussions also revolve around the current equation between the BJP and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). The consensus is that the RSS needs Mr Modi; but does Mr Modi pay the customary respects to the RSS? Is the RSS concerned that the supreme personality cult of one man in the party, and the bigoted Hindutva agenda hijacked now by the likes of Bajrang Dal, are likely to be counter-productive for the BJP in the long run? It is not coincidental that when RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat met with some leading Muslim figures, and visited a masjid, he was trolled extensively by supporters of the BJP. At whose behest?

Nitin Gadkari, widely hailed as one of the most effective ministers in the cabinet, was dropped from the BJP parliamentary board. Has he reconciled himself to his humiliation, or is biding his time, secure in the support he has in Nagpur? Or has former Maharashtra CM and now deputy CM, Devendra Fadnavis, replaced Mr Gadkari as the new Maharashtra favourite, both of the BJP and the RSS?

Finally, there is the ultimate question of what Narendra Modi will do when in less than three years he becomes 75 years of age. Will he fade into the Marg Darshak Mandal, like he has made others beyond this age do? There are some theories that he may like to move upwards to the post of President of India. If so, who would succeed him in the party?

There are questions galore. A last Cabinet reshuffle before the 2024 national elections is expected soon. Political pundits will remain busy. But, ultimately, only the writ of one man, Narendra Damodardas Modi, will prevail.