GLASSHOUSE: DO WE SEE A CM?
With assembly elections approaching, in West Bengal among other states, Union minister Babul Supriyo had been lobbying hard to be billed as ‘Banglar chhele’ (Son of Bengal), as a counter to chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s projection as ‘Banglar meye’ (Bengal’s Daughter). However, the induction of actor Mithun Chakraborty into the BJP has left Supriyo visibly upset. The singer had been hoping to be nominated as the BJP’s CM candidate, but the state BJP in-charge, Kailash Vijayvargiya, had other plans. He got RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat to pursue Mithun after the party’s plan to bring on board cricketer Sourav Ganguly did not work out. However, since the ModiShah duo want the assembly poll to be a direct Mamata versus Modi battle, they have ruled out contesting the election with a CM face. Supriyo may still have reason to be hopeful.
On March 10, Tirath Singh Rawat was sworn in as the ninth chief minister of Uttarakhand. The MP from the Pauri-Garhwal Lok Sabha seat replaced Trivendra Singh Rawat, who resigned on March 8. Tirath Singh was picked over heavyweights like Union human resource development minister Ramesh Pokhriyal and state tourism minister Satpal Maharaj for the top job. Interestingly, in 2017, the BJP had denied Tirath Singh a ticket from his traditional assembly seat Chaubattakhal, in Uttarakhand’s Pauri region, to accommodate Congress turncoat Maharaj.
The decision, say party sources, came straight from the top. Up until March 9, the 56-year-old was not even in the running for the top job in the state. BJP national vice-president Raman Singh and state party incharge Dushyant Gautam, who were in Dehradun to ensure a smooth transition of power after Trivendra Singh’s resignation, received a call from the prime minister’s office, conveying the decision to appoint Tirath Singh as the new chief minister. Union home minister Amit Shah and party chief J.P. Nadda were reportedly in on the decision to appoint Tirath Singh, who is known to be close to the prime minister. Before that, Dhan Singh Rawat, a minister in Trivendra Singh’s government, had emerged as the front-runner, but was possibly done in by his reputation of being overambitious besides being close to the former chief minister.
Tirath Singh has worked with the RSS and its affiliates in various capacities and was the state BJP chief from 2013 to 2015. Considered a team player, the national leadership felt that the soft-spoken Tirath Singh might serve as an antidote to Trivendra Singh and repair the damage done during his time in office.
On March 8, just a week before he was to complete four years as chief minister, Trivendra Singh was shown the door after a majority of his cabinet colleagues and legislators revolted against his style of functioning. Tirath Singh’s main task will be to win back the confidence of the party MLAs as well as RSS leaders in the state and get things moving at the organisational level. It will be anything but easy to keep all the heavyweights happy— people like former chief minister Vijay Bahuguna, Harak Singh Rawat, Madan Kaushik, Rajya Sabha MP Naresh Bansal, Tehri MP Mala Rajya Laxmi Shah, Nainital MP Ajay Bhatt, Pokhriyal and Maharaj.
Some BJP leaders in New Delhi are suggesting that Tirath Singh will contest from Doiwala constituency, represented earlier by the former chief minister, while Trivendra Singh might get to contest the Lok Sabha poll from Pauri-Garhwal, a seat that will be vacated by Tirath Singh as he takes over as chief minister.
Before he resigned, Trivendra Singh had met Shah and Nadda, among other party leaders, in New Delhi. Over the past year or so, the national leadership had received many complaints against him, a common one being that governance had been left to bureaucrats and the chief minister’s office. A long overdue cabinet expansion was also cause for resentment, and even though the outgoing chief minister had the reputation of being an upright administrator, cabinet colleagues as well as the central leadership felt they were not being taken into confidence about the big decisions in the state.
The last straw was Trivendra Singh’s latest move to declare Gairsain, Uttarakhand’s summer capital, as a
THE BJP EXPECTS NEW CM TIRATH SINGH RAWAT TO REBUILD A BROAD AGREEMENT IN THE STATE PARTY UNIT AND UNDO THE DAMAGE DONE BY TRIVENDRA SINGH’S ABRASIVE STYLE
third administrative division of the state—in addition to Kumaon and Garhwal—with its own police commissionerate. He reportedly did this without consulting his cabinet colleagues or party MLAs. The newly created administrative division of Gairsain was a sensitive issue as it would consist of four hill districts, including Almora and Bageshwar (in Kumaon) and Rudraprayag and Chamoli (Garhwal).
The sudden announcement in the state assembly early March, reportedly without any prior consultation, had really annoyed senior leaders like Nainital MP Ajay Bhatt and former chief minister Bhagat Singh Koshyari. Trivendra Singh was already on the hit list of the 17 Congress leaders who had switched over to the BJP before the 2017 assembly poll and were still waiting to be accommodated in the party organisation. The state’s RSS unit, too, complained that the former chief minister was not keeping them in the loop, even while taking key decisions like the Uttarakhand Devasthanam Management Bill, which would allow the state government to take over the management of temples.
On March 6, BJP national vicepresident Raman Singh and state party in-charge Dushyant Gautam met with the core group of the state unit and conducted one-on-one discussions with leaders and MLAs. While most tried to downplay the crisis, they agreed that a change in leadership might be best. The possibility of delaying the decision till after the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar and the next round of assembly elections in March-April was also discussed to avoid a distraction from the party campaign, but in a late-night meeting on March 8, Nadda made it clear to Trivendra Singh that he had to step down without any further delay. A top BJP leader in New Delhi said the change in leadership will give the party’s new regime time to repair the damage before the assembly election in 2022. Uttarakhand slows down in winter, the leader pointed out, and a delay might have cost valuable time.
Tirath Singh has his work cut out for him. He needs to ensure that the party organisation is firmly behind him before the assembly poll scheduled for February next year. In 2017, the BJP rode the Modi wave and stormed to power with 57 MLAs in the 70-member assembly. But next time, the party will likely require a strong local leadership. ■