With the much-hyped Deradun visit of the BJP’s national president Amit Shah inching closer, the party leaders, including the Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, are looking tense while they are going the whole hog to streamline things. While the party leaders are busy preparing for the slew of meetings Shah is scheduled to hold during his two-day trip the Government on its part is pulling all the stops to give a facelift to the city. However, the most important thing that is happening now is the lobby loyal to the CM going out of its way to humour the dissidents in apprehension of them exploding if they chance to meet and talk to Shah separately. Though the state BJP president Ajay Bhatt is underplaying the hectic goings- on within the party, terming them as normal in view of BJP being the largest political party of the world, observers say that the state party leadership is bent on presenting a unity show before the president after party leaders bickered in the open.
Bhatt said that the visit of the party president is important as the latter is likely to firm up the party strategy for the general election 2019 on the basis of the talks he would hold with the leaders of its different wings. “Knowing full well that the party might have slipped into a state of complacency following its victory in around 80 percent of the seats during the recently concluded Assembly election, the president is about to reinvigorate for the greater challenge lying ahead while giving tips to the leaders as well as the grassroot workers. We can hardly underestimate the negative role the frustrated opposition might play,” he said.
The party leaders are particularly wary of an MlA who had recently involved himself in a spat with the chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat over the relocation of a liquor shop in his constituency. The party insiders say that the leader having a knack for melodrama can prove embarrassing for the ruling clique. “He had his followers unleashed during the uncertainty hanging over his nomination for the seat he had his eyes on ahead of the Assembly election. They sang kirtans for days outside the state party headquarters. Nothing is impossible for him,” said a party insider.
Things are really challenging for the faction loyal to the CM with as many as three ministers and three MlAs remaining in a sulk mode, say the state watchers. “They are all the more worried as the Congress, now floundering, might spring upon them with renewed zeal if the fissures within the ruling party come into open during Shah’s visit,” says one of them.
However, there is little possibility of the CM getting out of the party president’s favour, given their good equations since the days the present CM worked as the party’s Jharkhand in-charge soon after Shah assumed the leadership of the party. “The leaders eying berths in the ministry are likely to show their best before the party president,” says a party insider.