The four former Chief Ministers of the State — Bhagat Singh Koshyari, Maj Gen Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri, Dr Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishak and Vijay Bahuguna not being given spaces on the dais where the BJP national president Amit Shah, along with a few others, were seated have eyebrows raised in the State’s political circles.
Many believe that the move to keep the four stalwarts out of the dais indicates the end of an era. Among those who were seated on the dais were the chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, the State party chief Ajay Bhatt, the Union Minister of State Ajay Tamta, State BJP in-charge Shyam Jaju and other central leaders like Dr Anil Jain, Tirath Singh Rawat and Shiv Prakash aside from Amit Shah.
Some BJP insiders said that it is fraught with immense political significance. “It is likely, given the present equations, that these four leaders who once helmed the Government in the State would be slowly eased out the moving matrix of the State’s political scene. Three of them, excluding Bahuguna (who switched to BJP from Congress) who are now MPs of the lok Sabha are most unlikely to be re-nominated during the 2019 general election. Bahuguna has already gone out of the electoral politics as he vacated space for his son to step into the scene during the 2017 Assembly election. This is why three MlAs are being groomed to step into the shoes of the three incumbent MPs,” said a State BJP leader who insisted on not being named.
Some say that the central party’s move to appoint a caretaker who is neither an MP nor an MlA is significant. “The caretaker who is himself a senior leader is tasked with collecting feedback from the people and to inform the party high command whether the incumbent lawmakers either in the Parliament or in the Assembly are rising up to the expectations of the party and the people. It is definitely a move to clip the wings of some of the party’s stalwarts. It is again meant to tighten the grip of the high command over the functioning of the State unit,” said a party insider. The party’s national president showing empathy with the aggrieved leaders has gone down well with almost all sections of the party’s rank and file. Interestingly, Shah said that those who failed to give their opinions on the state of things in the party for some reasons are free to vent their opinions in writing.