Veteran Leaders Will Be Consulted But Party Will Decide Their Future Roles: Rajnath

AHMEDABAD/BHOPAL/NEW DELHI: With less than 48 hours to go for the declaration of results, an assertive BJP leadership indicated that the veterans may have to settle for roles assigned to them by the party.

Although party president Rajnath Singh said the stalwarts will be consulted, he suggested that the leadership will take the final decision on what assignments they should get.

“As far as the roles of veteran leaders are concerned, I will call a party meeting to which they will be invited. After thorough discussions with all big leaders, we will decide what role will be played by which person,” Singh told reporters in Ahmedabad when asked what role L K Advani would be given if NDA is voted to power.

Singh was on his way to Gandhinagar to hold discussions with the party’s PM candidate Narendra Modi as part of the government-formation exercise, although he sought to play down the significance of the meeting saying that it was meant just to exchange notes of the campaign and take stock. Leader of opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley and former party president Nitin Gadkari were part of the deliberations.

Sources said the four leaders decided to call a meeting of the BJP parliamentary board when Modi reaches Delhi on Saturday to set the date when newly-elected BJP MPs will elect him as the leader of the parliamentary party. A meeting of the MPs belonging to NDA partners will also be called around the same time to elect Modi as leader of the NDA parliamentary party.

The BJP has also made plans to organize a grand reception for Modi when he reaches the Capital on Saturday.

With exit polls fortifying their own estimate that the BJP is set to regain power at the Centre after 10 years, the ministry-making exercise shifted into higher gear, with Singh grappling with the knotty task of finding appropriate slots for the veteran duo of Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi as well as leader of opposition Sushma Swaraj.

Gadkari, who had met Advani and Joshi on Tuesday to ascertain their preferences of the responsibilities they would like to discharge in a Modi regime, met Swaraj with Singh as part of the same sounding exercise. The meeting happened amid indications that those sympathetic to Swaraj strongly feel that she, having been leader of opposition, should have a role commensurate with her standing.

Political circles were also abuzz with speculation that Swaraj, who along with Advani and Joshi resisted the decision to project Modi as PM candidate, was upset over not having been invited for deliberations the Gujarat CM hosted in Gandhinagar.

However, Swaraj denied being angry. “Nothing should be read into my meetings with party president Rajnath Singh or Nitin Gadkari. These were courtesy visits,” she said during a brief interaction with media after touching down at Bhopal airport.

“I am not angry with anyone. We just wanted to meet ahead of poll results. When Rajnath and Gadkari came to know that I was flying to Bhopal, they came to meet me. It was a routine meeting,” she said and walked off.

As they get down to indentifying the possible ministerial appointments, the leadership, besides having to manage egos and seniority claims, faces a talent crunch: a problem made acute by RSS’s insistence that an honest effort should be made to move those past 75 to mentor roles. Jaitley is considered to be a hot favourite for finance or home, particularly if he makes it to Lok Sabha from Amritsar. But with both Yashwant Sinha and Jaswant Singh out of the equation, there are no obvious choices for either defence or external affairs.

The weak bench strength may see Modi seeking to persuade Rajnath Singh to switch to the government to handle defence, though this will still leave him with the task of finding a person of adequate standing for the ministry of external affairs.

Modi will have trouble finding a suitable person for home ministry should Jaitley get finance. Being a very sensitive ministry with an oversight over Intelligence Bureau, the home minister is expected to be a person who enjoys the PM’s absolute trust. With not many around who can fulfill the bare minimum of eligibility criterion, one school of thought favours the bifurcation of the ministry with its internal security function being hived off into a separate department which can be put under a minister of state reporting directly to the PM.

For the health ministry, however, Delhi BJP leader Harsh Vardhan seems to have emerged as a likely choice with the leadership reckoning that the important position at the Centre will elevate his stature ahead of Delhi assembly polls where he may be projected as the CM candidate.

Another problem confronting the leadership is how to strike a balance between members of Lok Sabha and their counterparts in Rajya Sabha in the appointments to crucial ministries. The party is expecting a huge contingent of 240-odd members in Lok Sabha, many of whom will be relatively inexperienced so far as handling responsibilities at the Centre is concerned. The party’s RS squad has more experienced but the leadership is concerned that those directly elected cannot be ignored.