After a near 12-day-long protracted confabulation, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) top central leadership finally collected its thoughts and put together a government in Delhi. There were several Chief Ministerial aspirants. While Rekha Gupta became the Chief Minister and Parvesh Verma minister with key portfolios, Vijender Gupta is going to be the party’s candidate for the Speaker’s post.
Other prominent MLAs too have got accommodated in the Cabinet, the only notable omission being former state party head Satish Upadhyay. The cabinet has been criticised by some for being short in experience as none among them, including the Chief Minister, has any ministerial experience. The most plausible reason for it being that party has come to power after a hiatus of 27 years.
The present lot of leaders belongs to a generation of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), in Delhi who never had the opportunity to flower and reach the political leadership position at a higher level. They were denied their due as the entrenched state party leaders from the earlier generation resisted their entry and delayed it for long.
While some, in the absence of opportunities, got burnt out over a period of time but some prodded on and have come thus far. Most of these leaders who have come to the prominence now were lucky to find a mentor in the late Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The erudite politician himself was denied an entry into Delhi’s politics when his time was ripe and had to take a detour.
Jaitley using his advocacy skills both inside in the court rooms and on the then newly arrived television channels came to the limelight. His entry into the parliament through Rajya Sabha was thus facilitated.
Himself a former President of Delhi University Students Union (DUSU), Jaitley well-understood the mental trauma and the frustration of the next generation of DUSU leaders and thus decided to their hand holding.
Most of them managed to cut their teeth in politics when Sheila Dikshit government trifurcated Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) into three entities and suddenly a demand arose for large number of candidates to contest from different wards. It was here that the likes of Rekha Sharma, Ashish Sood and for that matter Satish Upadhyay started their career in electoral politics. No wonder that their time has come now and the party has rewarded them for their patience and hard work.
Another point to be underlined here is that despite the presence of three MLAs with long ministerial experience, party chose to go with old cadre members. These three MLAs – Arvinder Singh Lovely, Rajkumar Chouhan and Kailash Gahlot have all travelled to BJP recently from different parties.
The first two from the Congress and Gahlot from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). This sent the message pretty strongly that aspirations of party cadres and longterm loyalists would be rewarded before those seeking entry into the saffron outfit for political convenience. This is also visible in the allocation of work to the Ministers. The distribution of Ministries puts onerous responsibility on Janakpuri MLA Ashish Sood.
A former DUSU joint secretary and president in the later part of 1980s, Sood for long remained on the periphery. Whatever assignments he had was to be a cog in the organisational wheels. He on at least two previous occasions came close to be appointed the president of the state unit but always missed it by a whisker. With departments like urban development, power, education, higher education and technical education under his belt, Sood would be playing the role of the pivot in a basketball team. In this sport, the pivot is absolutely essential.
Pivoting allows players to change direction while maintaining their dribble, protect the ball from defenders, and shoot or pass quickly. Sood as pivot would be responsible to keep the government machinery functioning to meet the goals of Modi guarantees.
As Urban Development Minister he would be the one who would liaison with the Lieutenant Governor on the matters of Delhi Development Authority (DDA), the landowning central agency. In short it’s a well-balanced team with a ‘benevolent’ union government to mentor it. But best of the teams can go awry when it comes to real time play. Caution and skill should see them play long innings.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice