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Markers for Modi 3.0 cabinet

Given the numbers, will Narendra Modi be able to get the cabinet he wants? Before the election results were declared, we were told he had the blueprint ready for the next 100 days. Given this level of preparedness he must have had his cabinet list all drawn up as well. But that was then. What has changed since his reduced numbers? Will the RSS have a larger say in cabinet portfolios, the way it did during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government when it struck down Jaswant Singh’s appointment as Finance Minister. Or will Modi get his way, because reduced numbers aside, he still remains BJP’s best bet. Plus the numbers may diminish but the force of his personality and his chutzpah have not. So, there are some markers that will help us ascertain how the PM has fared in this political tug of war, both with the RSS, and with the allies.

a. What portfolios will the Vajpayee-BJP get? The portfolios given to Nitin Gadkari and Shivraj Singh Chouhan in particular would be interesting to note. Both are RSS favourites, as is Rajnath Singh.

b. Will the leaders exported from Congress be accommodated? The RSS and some BJP workers too were unhappy with the prominence given to “outsiders” over party loyalists during ticket distribution. Will they be accommodated in the new ministry?

c. What will happen to Modi favourites S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Ashwini Vaishnaw? Both Jaishankar and Vaishnaw are former bureaucrats and suit Modi’s governance matrix; but now there are political considerations as well as governance ones to be taken into account.

d. Who will be the next BJP president? The current party chief, J.P. Nadda’s term is coming to an end, and his comments about the BJP not needing the RSS any more will not be forgotten by the Sangh in a hurry. According to sources, Modi had wanted M.L. Khattar to replace him and the latter has a good equation with the RSS leadership as well.

e. Finally, what will the allies get? Will they be able to pressurise the Prime Minister into parting with some heavyweight portfolios? There is also talk of a Deputy PM, though it is hard to see how Modi would agree to that.

THE PAT ON THE BACK

All eyes were on the Modi-Yogi meet at the NDA meeting in the capital. When the UP Chief Minister went up to congratulate the Prime Minister, he got a pat on the back in response. This is now being interpreted by political analysts, some of them recalling how the then Haryana CM M.L. Khattar was once praised by the PM for his vision for Haryana at an event in Gurgaon in March this year, and a few hours later, the very next day he was asked to resign and replaced as CM. However, given Yogi’s hold in Uttar Pradesh (the current results notwithstanding) it would be interesting to see how this equation plays out.

Akhilesh Yadav’s strategy

What made Akhilesh Yadav sweep Uttar Pradesh and orchestrate such a magnificent comeback for his party? At the meeting of the I.N.D.I.A group in New Delhi he was clearly the star of the show, with other leaders jostling for his attention and clicking selfies with him. Apart from his social engineering, his smart ticket distribution and being a more credible votary of Mandal than even the Congress, what also worked was the messaging. Here even Rahul Gandhi adopted a similar strategy.

Both leaders stayed on message and avoided all the traps to turn the election rhetoric into a Modi vs Whom debate. They avoided media interviews, for the media tends to focus on the PM’s personality and provokes the opposition into attacking the PM. That then would have given Modi a chance to play the victim card as he did with the “chai-wala”, “Modi chor hai”, “Modi neech hai” comments in the earlier elections. This alliance kept to the script, with both Rahul and Akhilesh addressing the people directly during their rallies or on social media and kept the discourse around their agenda, instead of being diverted into a Modi personality debate or even the Hindu-Muslim-Ram Mandir issue.

Which constituency will Rahul Gandhi give up?

It seems that Rahul Gandhi has a problem of plenty. He has won from both the seats that he contested. In fact the slogan at the Congress HQ is that Rahul contested two seats but won from three, for the Amethi win is also being seen as a proxy win for the Congress leader. Initially, Rahul had told his colleagues that he would be retaining Wayanad, but post the mandate and given the Congress success in Uttar Pradesh, winning 6 of the 17 seats it contested, not to mention the trophy win in Amethi, in all likelihood Rahul would be retaining Rae Bareli and perhaps Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (whose role as a star campaigner has been commended by all) will finally be entering Parliament from the South.