Why Amit Shah is BJP and Modi's talisman
Amit Shah's re-election as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president was never in doubt. But it has sent out a clear message about the course the party and the Narendra Modi led NDA government will take in the next three years.
If Narendra Modi's ascent heralded a new era in the BJP, Amit Shah's re-election has completed that process and marks a clear generational shift in the party. Under Amit Shah the BJP is emerging as a true mass based cadre party. Under Modi and Shah the BJP has made many significant electoral gains, winning four new states. In a way, the defeats in Bihar and Delhi cannot be construed as losses, for the party was not in power in these states. Amit Shah has in the meantime, tuned the BJP as a fine electoral mechanism.
A unique feature of the BJP is that unlike other parties in India which are either dynastic or personality oriented, the BJP has an ideological family with many stake holders. In that sense, Shah's re-election is a great reaffirmation of his success as an ideologue, organisation and team leader. He has richly contributed to take the achievements of the central government to the grass roots and build the confidence of the party to win major electoral victories in the next three years.
Most likely the BJP will be fighting the 2019 Lok Sabha polls with Shah at the helm. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has placed his faith in Amit Shah to galvanise the party for the big tasks ahead also because in the last 18 months as party chief Amit Shah has created many records, which no other party president has in the party's three and a half decade long history.
Solely to his credit go four most ambitious tasks the party has taken up and achieved a high level of success. The first was the Maha sadasyata Abhiyan which in a short span of four months boosted the party as the largest political formation in the world, taking the membership to 110 million, overtaking even the Chinese Communist party. His idea of registering party membership by giving a missed call became so popular that the Congress Party, which initially criticised the BJP drive, later imitated it.
The second was a massive Maha Sampark Abhiyan, to individually contact and verify each and every new member to formally get them introduced to the party. This was followed up by the launch of the Deendayal Upadhyay Prasikshan Mahaabhiyan to train 1.5 million party workers from the mandal up to the national level. No political party has ever taken up such a momentous task. This training is about ideology, orientation, behaviour and the strategy of the party to achieve its goal. Every section of the society is touched by this programme and its format and methodology are centrally designed and executed with messianic exactitude.
The fourth innovation is to equip the party up to the district level with hi-tech, modern office with library, reference facility, connectivity and lodging facility. As Amit Shah drives towards realising the idea of a Congress-mukt Bharat, he is also making it certain that his party emerges the pre-eminent political entity in India.
His effort to make BJP push the boundaries to aggressively pursue the ideological agenda has made him the darling of the Sangh Pariwar. Under him a large number of RSS pracharaks have joined the BJP's functions. He has ensured better coordination and understanding with various sections working for the student, farmer and labour movements. Amit Shah has the great advantage of a shared chemistry with the prime minister, which ensures the smooth functioning of the government and the party.
How does it impact the future of Indian politics? The end of the coalition era was the biggest message of the BJP victory in 2014. Amit Shah followed up on this advantage with great success in Haryana, Jharkhand and Maharashtra. The party did not close its doors on successful political engagement with other parties even in the case of distinct ideological differences as in the case of its coalition partner in Jammu and Kashmir.
Under Amit Shah, the party has expanded to new areas and it is bidding for power in a big way in Assam in the coming Assembly poll. Equally, the party is poised to make gains in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal - that will go to polls along with Assam. That the party did not fare well in the last year's election in Delhi and Bihar has not diminished Shah's Midas' touch in winning elections as demonstrated earlier in Uttar Pradesh and later in states like Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir.
In fact, Shah's electoral strategy is the biggest worry for the opponents of the BJP. They are afraid that his novel approach to electoral politics has turned the campaign style on its head. He is aggressive, innovative and tech savvy. No other party has so far mastered the art of using technology and modern communication tools for political propaganda as successfully as the BJP.