Former State Chief Minister Raghubar Das and Telangana BJP leader Indra Sena Reddy Nallu have been appointed as the Governors of Odisha and Tripura, respectively, the Rashtrapati Bhavan issued notification in this connection on Wednesday evening.

Das, currently a national vice-president of the BJP, was the first non-tribal Chief Minister of Jharkhand from 2014 to 2019. He has been appointed to the gubernatorial post in place of Ganeshi Lal, who has completed his tenure.

By making former Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghuvar Das the Governor of Odisha, BJP has tried to send several messages simultaneously. Babulal Marandi will now be the undisputed frontrunner for the post of Chief Minister. It will be possible for Saryu Rai, who defeated Raghuvar by contesting as an independent candidate in the assembly elections, to return home.

After the election of Draupadi Murmu as President, this latest step of BJP made it clear that it is again trying to strengthen the old track of its tribal politics. It is believed that its immediate impact will be on the assembly elections of five states, because for this purpose, BJP has already made a leader like Union Minister of State Faggan Singh Kulaste as the assembly candidate in the largest tribal state Madhya Pradesh.

Das, the only non-tribal chief minister in Jharkhand with over 26% tribal population, was a surprise pick for the top post in the state in 2014. He led the BJP in the 2019 Jharkhand elections but the party couldn’t secure a majority. Hemant Soren of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha became the state’s chief minister and Raghubar Das - who for the first time since 1995 lost the Jamshedpur East assembly seat - reverted to the position in the BJP that he held before being elevated as chief minister in 2014; BJP’s national vice president.

But Raghubar Das continued to have a say in how the Jharkhand BJP unit was run by Babulal Marandi, the party’s state unit chief. Another prominent player in the state politics, Arjun Munda, also a former chief minister, had already been inducted into the Union council of ministers as the tribal affairs minister in May 2019.

“That Marandi would play an important role in the BJP was clear when he returned to the party just after the 2019 elections. He was made legislature party leader,” explained a BJP leader. In July this year, the BJP named Marandi to lead the state unit and prepare the ground for the BJP’s return to power in the state in 2024.

The BJP leader cited above said Raghubar Das, however, had been reluctant to take a step back. “With this new appointment, the central leadership has settled the leadership issue in the state for now,” a senior BJP leader said.

A second BJP leader underlined that Raghubar Das played a crucial role in the appointment of former minister Amar Bauri, who also led the BJP’s scheduled caste wing in the state, as the new BJP legislature party leader earlier this week.