The war of 2019, the next General Elections, has already started with the battle of the states, led by the BJP’s result-oriented new president Amit Shah. A week after he was formally anointed as the BJP’s 13th President, the 50-year-old has chosen a young, tight team with a smattering of experience. With the immediate goal of winning the Assembly elections in four states—Haryana, Maharashtra, Jammu and Kashmir and Jharkhand—scheduled in the next six months, Shah’s new team of 11 vice-presidents, eight general secretaries and 14 secretaries will be the vanguard of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s army to keep the BJP in power in 2019.
The key words that describe the team best are youth, experience and loyalty. Shah’s team is smaller than former party president Rajnath Singh’s. The powerful team of general secretaries has been reduced to eight leaders from the usual 10.
The young Turks, over a dozen of them are in their forties—prominent among them are Ram Madhav (48) who is considered the RSS pointsman in the BJP, former women’s wing head Saroj Pandey (45) and Rajya Sabha MP and secretary in Rajnath Singh’s team Bhupendra Yadav (46). Eighty per cent of Team Shah are in the fifties. B S Yeddyurappa (71) and Bandaru Dattatreya (68) are the senior generals. Those retained include J P Nadda (53), Rajiv Pratap Rudy (52), Muralidhar Rao (51) and Ram Lal from the old team. Out are openly ambitious young guns like Varun Gandhi and those perceived close to the previous leadership such as C P Thakur, S S Ahluwalia, Balbir Punj and Laxmikant Chawla. Besides, the age factor also worked against them. Smriti Irani, D V Sadananda Gowda, Jual Oram had joined the cabinet leaving vacancies behind. Shah has consciously kept electoral and organisational talent in mind while choosing his team. Providing experience and grasp of grassroots politics is old Modi loyalist and former Karnataka chief minister Yeddyurappa. The ideological thrust is being given by Ram Madhav and Vinay Sahasrabuddhe. Shah’s team includes five OBCs and nine women, and has representation from SCs and STs as well.