Modi's top lieutenant Amit Shah made new BJP President


A marriage often doesn't work when both partners talk too much, or alternatively, keep too much to themselves. So, a cacophonous wife can often be best handled by a cool husband, and also vice-a-versa.

The political nuptial tie-up between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his confidant and newly anointed BJP president Amit Shah is similar: while one of them speaks, the other sets up the platform.

If there is a home party, the caterers and the cuisine are quietly organised by Shah, and Modi then takes charge of the gentry, which is wowed by the arrangements.

Amit Shah offers BJP veteran L.K. Advani (left) a seat as PM Narendra Modi (right) looks on.


When the BJP delivered a shocker in Uttar Pradesh, scalping 73 out of 80 seats in the state in the Lok Sabha elections, as the general secretary in-charge of the country's most populous state Shah was credited for the sweep. But the public limelight was on prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

It is the UP sweep that has got Shah the now coveted BJP presidentship, and his job is immediately cut out, given the upcoming state Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Jharkhand, Delhi and Maharashtra.

This is besides the by-elections to some nine Assembly seats in Gujarat, about a dozen in UP, and, of course, the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat vacated by Modi, and Mainpuri vacated by Mulayam Singh Yadav.

saffron summits

In every nook and cranny of Gujarat - and now India - one could find Modi adorning posters and newspaper spaces. Not Shah. This is why few, including his own party leaders, could notice him pulling the rug from under Mulayam and Mayawati, as well as the Congress leaders who had no clue what hit them.

bigwigs who held the post

The Modi juggernaut surely steam-rolled all parties to procure an unprecedented victory in UP and his magic certainly worked, but that wasn't without Shah having performed the quiet kar sewa for over one and a half years through the length and breadth of the vast state.

"It was no rocket science," says a veteran Lucknow journalist, "But a simple strategy."

The first task that Shah took up, just as the entire BJP did in Gujarat under Modi's leadership, was to reach out to every leader of the state's 72 districts. This is one reason the BJP clocked a 26-of-26 victory in Shah's home state.

In keeping with Modi's Gujarat principle of one-booth-10-youth, Shah made the district-level leaders feel empowered and got them to identify 10 persons to manage each of the 1.32 lakh polling booths in UP. He then told each of the 10 to mobilise 10 voters.

And the selection of the 10 was not random: there was a proper caste arithmetic, as if one were constituting a council of ministers to ensure nobody felt short-changed.

There was a multiplier effect: 1.32 lakh booths with 10 persons each would mean 13.2 lakh people. With each of the booth leaders getting 10, the total comes to 1.32 crore people.

Shah, who was born in Mumbai in 1964 to a Gujarati business family, had embraced the RSS when he went to college in Ahmedabad. It was in the early eighties that he bumped into Modi, himself a promising pracharak. Shah rose from the ranks to become the state general secretary before he surprised everyone in 1997 with his first Assembly victory from the Sarkhej constituency, which had a good number of Muslim voters.

The quiet, bearded MLA held on to this seat for three consecutive terms before he was shifted to the Naranpura Assembly constituency in 2012, which he also won.

His organisational skills were also put to fore when he and Modi wrested control of banking and milk cooperatives in the state, before Shah helped appropriate the Gujarat Cricket Association, getting Modi as its president in place of veteran Congress leader Narhari Amin.

Ironically, Amin joined the BJP soon after.

Jubilant BJP supporters celebrate Amit Shah's elevation by bursting fire crackers in Ahmedabad


With Modi becoming the PM, Shah easily got elected as the GCA president. Dubbed a Chanakya of sorts, Shah handled several portfolios after Modi became the chief minister. Most importantly, he became the Minister of State for Home, besides holding several departments at different times.

However, Shah courted controversy after being accused by the CBI for the alleged fake encounters of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kauser Bi and a key witness in the killing, Tulsiram Prajapati.

Though he was let off in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, where eight Gujarat policemen and four central Intelligence Bureau (IB) officials have been included in two CBI charge-sheets, Shah becomes the first BJP president with serious criminal cases pending against him.

Shah also faced serious allegations in 2013 when reports flew thick and fast about the Gujarat government snooping on a woman architect reportedly on his instructions. 

Shah of all he surveys

By Kumar Vikram in New Delhi

Both the Sangh and the party leadership zeroed in on Amit Shah

Both the Sangh and the party leadership zeroed in on Amit Shah

Wednesday marked the complete "Modi-fication" of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as Amit Shah, known to be the most trusted lieutenant of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, took charge as the party president.

Rajnath Singh, the man Shah succeeds, made the announcement.

"From now on, Amit Shah will be the president of the BJP and will lead the party," said Singh, flanked by Modi and other leaders.

Shortly after the announcement, Modi and Singh offered sweets to Shah while other leaders, including L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Sushma Swaraj and Arun Jaitley, gave him bouquets.

With Shah bagging the top post, now both the power centres-the government and the BJP-is under complete control of Modi. Some leaders said the PM will play a decisive role both in government and party-related activities.

Party insiders said this was the very reason why the RSS had earlier opposed the idea of Shah's elevation as the party chief.

"The Sangh has always been the mentor and it never wanted all powers to be shifted to one hand. They feared that this may harm the Sangh's influence on the party," said a senior BJP leader, on condition of anonymity.

This was the very reason that names of other leaders, including J.P. Nadda and O.P. Mathur, did the rounds for the top party post. However, over the past two weeks, both the Sangh Parivar and the BJP's senior leadership zeroed in on Shah.

Singh played down the issue and said decisions like this in a big party like the BJP cannot be viewed from the prism of region, religion and caste. But the Sangh Parivar shored up its position in the new arrangement.

The RSS, seeking to play a pro-active role in party-related matters, deputed two senior members to join the BJP in organisational roles, including spokesman Ram Madhav, one of its most prominent faces.

The two are likely to get key roles in the revamped BJP set-up with Madhav expected to be the new general secretary.

Taking it positively, an RSS leader said the Sangh Parivar believes that Shah becoming the party chief will ensure good coordination between the BJP and the government. Rajnath Singh was full of praise for Shah.

"Shah is full of imaginative ideas and is good at organisational skills. As in-charge of Uttar Pradesh during the Lok Sabha polls, he had a roaring success. The BJP has never been so successful in its history in Uttar Pradesh," he said.

Though Modi made no comments at the function, he later tweeted his congratulations for Shah.


Modi's top lieutenant Amit Shah made new BJP President


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