Cabinet expansion: From UP to Maharashtra, state-level electoral politics & caste arithmetic were critical determinants

From Uttar Pradesh to Maharashtra, from Gujarat to the Northeast, state-level electoral politics and caste arithmetic were critical determinants of this week’s cabinet expansion.
ET Magazine gives you a lowdown. First stop: Uttar Pradesh

UTTAR PRADESH: THE DIE IS CASTE
In Uttar Pradesh, as a wag once put it, people don’t caste their vote; they vote their caste. So when a Brahmin, a Dalit and an other backward class (OBC) ‘leader’ from a state that goes to the polls in eight months are called up to the Centre, you don’t have to be a math genius or a poll pundit to determine one of the key triggers for maximising government — or the cabinet, if you will — earlier this week.

Also read: Another take on Smriti Irani's relocation

While Chandauli MP Mahendra Nath Pandey is a Brahmin from Poorvanchal, Krishna Raj who represents Shahjahanpur in the Lok Sabha is seen as the Dalit face. Anupriya Patel, the Mirzapur MP from Apna Dal (AD), is a Kurmi (OBC) leader. Pandey, Raj and Patel have been made ministers of state (MoS) for human resource development, women & child development and health & family welfare, respectively. All of them are first-time MPs. With their induction, UP has the highest ever number of ministers at the Centre, 14, besides the prime minister who is a “UP wallah” in his own words.

Krishna Raj may be a replacement for the Dalit face of the government in UP, Ram Shankar Katheria, who is likely to be inducted in Amit Shah’s team. Raj, a Pasi leader, would be in a position to woo Dalit votes of BSP in the crucial 2017 state polls. The community constitutes around a fifth of UP’s population and is being actively targeted by the BJP to reach the magic number of 30% votes.

Also read: Meet these three new ministers up close

If you have any doubts about the “woo Dalit” mission, hear out the Republican Party of India (RPI) chieftain Ramdas Athawale who, hitherto confined largely to Maharashtra, is now looking northward. “The main aim of the RPI is to ensure the defeat of Mayawati. In the Charan Singh government, the RPI had four ministers. It fought on the symbol of elephant. We will take the elephant back from Mayawati,” he told ET Magazine.

Raj, for her part, rubbishes the theory of being BJP’s Dalit face. “Our party does not work on caste lines. People are fed up with the lawless government of the Samajwadi Party (SP) and are looking to the BJP with hope. The contest is going to be between the SP and the BJP. I will actively campaign in the upcoming elections,” Raj told ET Magazine.

Anupriya Patel has emerged as the most visible face of the Kurmi community, and is expected to counter SP’s Beni Prasad Verma and JD(U)’s Nitish Kumar, who has been holding rallies in the state and been termed a vote spoiler by none other than Amit Shah. The immediate challenge of the new family welfare minister will, however, be to douse the fire raging within the family.

Miffed by the induction of her daughter into the cabinet, AD president and Anupriya’s mother Krishna on Thursday snapped ties with the BJP. The mother-daughter duo have been fighting over leadership following the death of Anupriya’s father and AD founder Sone Lal Patel in 2009. While the mother wants to promote her elder daughter Pallavi and even expelled Anupriya last year, the latter claims she is the real face of the party. The second party MP Harivansh Singh feels a majority are with the mother. “The mother calls the shots. Anupriya hardly has 10% followers,” he told ET Magazine.


Also read: The new cabinet has Modi's aspiration of a result-oriented govt

Pandey’s induction may be a balancing act of sorts. Sources say Brahmins who once represented the core votes of the BJP in the 1990s were miffed with the rising influence of OBCs — Keshav Chandra Maurya is the state president — and the Dalits.

The overall game plan of the BJP seems to be to go back to the 1991 formula of Kalyan Singh, feel experts: target Brahmins and non-Yadav OBCs to corner 30-31% votes even as it chips away at Mayawati’s bastion with leaders like Athawale, Krishna Raj and Jugal Kishore. In 1991, the BJP was at its peak in UP, with 221 MLAs; the number has now come down to 47. In the semi-final ahead of 2019, it’s clearly do or die. And the die is caste.

—By Prerna Katiyar

GUJARAT: BEN BREATHES EASY


It is not exactly clear if the Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo indeed intended to reassure Gujarat Chief Minister Anandiben Patel that her chair is safe for the moment, but that’s the message her loyalists have read from the recent reshuffle of the Union cabinet.

One of her critics and a powerful tribal leader from South Gujarat, the five-time MP Mansukh Vasava, has been dropped unceremoniously.

And the only natural contender for the chief ministerial position in Gujarat in the post-Modi era, Parshottam Rupala, has been taken out of the equation as he has been called to New Delhi.

Another minister, Mohan Kundariya, who is a Leuva Patel from Saurashtra, too, has been dropped from the Union cabinet ostensibly for failing to handle the simmering Patidar agitation. Vasava had reportedly complained against Anandiben’s minister Saurabh Dalal and now blames Ben for his ouster.

Rupala has been made an MoS, virtually pre-empting him from throwing his hat in the ring as Anandiben’s replacement anytime soon. Mansukh Mandaviya, a Leuva Patel from Palitana, has been made a minister “for saab’s (read Modi’s) fancy for him,” as put by a party worker. “He has been rewarded for his perceived contribution to the handling of the Patidar movement,” said another.

“The exercise is a political gimmick and the community is not going to relent until our demands are met,” says Sardar Patel Group (SPG) president Lalji Patel, who is currently out on bail. Lalji was arrested in April during a jail bharo campaign of the Patidar community that was launched in Mehsana.

— By DP Bhattacharya



RAJASTHAN: MOS 5, RAJE NONE

Two years ago, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi formed his first cabinet, there was surprise, even shock, in Rajasthan’s political circles. Nihalchand Meghwal, a relative newcomer Dalit MP, had trumped other ambitious senior leaders to become a minister of state.

While Nihalchand’s unexpected ascension was one reason for the shock, another was Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje’s son Dushyant being ignored for a ministerial post, despite a strong push from the state BJP and Raje herself.

The buzz was that Nihalchand had bypassed Raje, who insisted on Dushyant being made minister, and got himself into the cabinet by lobbying with senior BJP leader Rajnath Singh.

In 2016, things changed sharply enough for the same MP to be ejected from the Council of Ministers. This cabinet expansion has also ensured substantial gains in representation from the desert state.

While it was three ministers of state previously, the number has now risen to five. Caste being the dominant factor in Rajasthan, Modi had to ensure that Nihalchand was replaced by Arjun Ram Meghwal, and Sanwar Lal Jat by another MP from the Jat community, CR Choudhary.

Political circles in the state noted the rise in representation, but nobody was under any doubt about who had the last word in appointing ministers. While Raje’s equation with the central leadership is not as poor as last year when the Lalit Modi controversy shot through the roof, her limited influence over the appointments is not contested.

—By Akshay Deshmane

MAHARASHTRA: A TALE OF TWO RESHUFFLES

For the Shiv Sena and the BJP in Maharashtra, the events of 2014 unfolded like a soap opera. A joining of hands for the Lok Sabha polls, a divorce before the assembly elections four months later and then a re-union in December.

While 2015 was somewhat calm, in June 2016 the script got upgraded with a dose of cinematic name calling. Now, with the polls to the Municipal Corporation for Greater Mumbai (MCGM) looming in February 2017, the fate of the Devendra Fadnavis government in Maharashtra hangs by a thread, which may snap many times in the next few months.

A lot depends on how Fadnavis handles the Sena and whether he can keep the Sena ministers in his government happy. After the July 7 reshuffle of Maharashtra’s Council of Ministers, where the BJP gave the Shiv Sena only two new ministers of state, the Sena’s Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Raut told ET Magazine: “It’s okay.”

Nothing could be more eloquent. Sena was bargaining for one more cabinet seat and the BJP not just denied it, but also brought in six new cabinet ministers: five were from the BJP and the sixth was Mahadev Jankar, president of the fledgling Rashtriya Samaj Paksh. Raut, however, said: “This is as per our prior agreement. Two ministers of state were due for us and we got that.”

— By Suman Layak

Scenes from Sholay
Clearly, the Sena has accepted the snub with a straight face, because it wants to live to fight another day. This was just the semi-final in their tussle. There’s anger within the BJP too. A BJP functionary told ET Magazine on condition of anonymity: “The two-faced policy of the Sena must stop. In closed rooms they act friendly with us and then come out like lions in front of their followers. They cannot afford to quit the government or their senior leaders will leave the party.” In early June, Raut had criticised PM Narendra Modi for his frequent foreign trips. Then, possibly for comic relief, a BJP spokesperson said Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray was like the jailor in the 1970s Bollywood hit Sholay, holding on to his MLAs. In retaliation, a Sena corporator compared BJP president Amit Shah with Sholay villain Gabbar Singh. Then in the first week of July, Thackeray said he was not in the business of begging for cabinet seats. Raut dismissed the Union cabinet reshuffle earlier this week, which did not yield any new ministership for the Sena, as “BJP’s own internal reshuffle targeted at the UP polls”. BJP had made Maharashtra Dalit leader Ramdas Athawale a Union minister. The signal from the BJP top brass was clear: as an ally of the Central NDA government, the Sena had to fall in line, else it would bolster its prospects by keeping other allies like Jankar and Athawale happy.

Also read: Modi government's got talent but is it being fully utilised?

Numbers Game
It is a slightly different story in Maharashtra, though. Here the Fadnavis-led government depends on the Shiv Sena. In the 288-member House, the BJP has 122 seats and depends on the Sena’s 63 to make up the majority. In the 227-member MCGM (popularly known as the BMC), it is even more fractious, with the Sena, having only 75 seats, making up the numbers with the BJP (31) and independents. Three rounds of local body polls in Maharashtra in the last six months have sent some interesting signals. While the BJP led the polls in December 2015, the Congress led the next two rounds in January and April, with the BJP coming in fourth in the last round. There will be more indicators as another round of local body polls is due in October. Ashish Shelar, BJP’s president for Mumbai, says the reshuffles in the state and at the Centre would have no bearing on the MCGM polls. On the possibility of an alliance, he said: “Every party wants to grow. It’s true of the BJP and the Sena. We will take a call on the alliance at an appropriate time.” Raut retorted: “It doesn’t matter if the BJP is with us or not, the Shiv Sena will rule the BMC.”

Karnataka: Mission 2018 Indulekha Aravind


Member of Parliament from Karnataka DV Sadananda Gowda was one of the biggest losers in the cabinet reshuffle, shunted from the law ministry to the relatively minor ministry of statistics. Capping the ignominy is the fact that this is Gowda’s second demotion — he was initially the railway minister, before the key ministry was handed over to Suresh Prabhu.

With Karnataka going to the polls in 2018 and the BJP pushing to reclaim its gateway to the South, Modi could not afford to drop Gowda altogether. He belongs to the Vokkaliga community, one of the two dominant castes in the state (the other is the Lingayats, represented by state BJP president BS Yeddyurappa).

“Like with Smriti Irani, the retention of some ministers is a reflection of their political importance in their states which will soon go to elections. The BJP would like to harness and consolidate the Vokkaliga vote,” says Sandeep Shastri, political analyst and pro-vice chancellor of Jain University.

The elevation of Bijapur MP Ramesh Jigajinagi, a Dalit, is also viewed as paying political consideration to his home state. Jigajinagi, a Madiga, belongs to the “left” faction of Dalits while prominent Dalit leaders in the state, whether in the BJP or the Congress, have traditionally come from the “right” (Holaya) faction. Jigajinagi, who also has his own line of wines under the “Hampi Heritage” brand, was a staunch follower of the late Ramakrishna Hegde, and contested on a BJP ticket only after the death of his mentor. He is now a minister of state in the drinking water and sanitation ministry, an important plank in the prime minister’s Swachh Bharat mission.

However, Narendar Pani, professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, a think tank, says the elevation might have more to do with the internal politics of the BJP rather than his Dalit credentials. “Jigajinagi, though a Dalit, is not really seen as a Dalit leader in the state,” says Pani. The biggest gainer from Karnataka, no doubt, has been Ananth Kumar. The Bengaluru South MP, who had been sulking since he was given the chemicals and fertiliser ministry two years ago, has got a bonus in the form of the politically important parliamentary affairs portfolio.

The new responsibility requires frequent interactions with the prime minister and points to Kumar’s growing acceptability and, perhaps, faith in his ability to broker peace with the Opposition. While Modi has cemented Yeddyurappa’s role as state BJP president, the reshuffle seeks to redeem Kumar’s position at the Centre. Both Karnataka BJP leaders no longer have reason to complain but they will have to shoulder the responsibility of returning the BJP to power, come 2018.

Northeast Shantanu Nandan Sharma


Last Sunday, member of Parliament from Assam Rajen Gohain was in his constituency Nagaon, meeting visitors and attending social functions. His mobile was on silent mode. He did not bother to return the missed calls: little did he know that one of those calls was from Amit Shah. BJP’s national president wanted Gohain, a four-time Lok Sabha MP and one of the early BJP leaders from Assam, to meet him in Delhi the following day.

Two other senior ministers in the Modi cabinet too called him, but there was no response. Shah finally called Gohain’s wife, who was in Mumbai that Sunday, and told her that Gohain should immediately meet him in Delhi. Gohain reached the capital the next day and, when he was sitting at Shah’s residence, he got a confirmation from the cabinet secretary that he would be a minister of state. “Yes, it was great news for me and my supporters. I have been winning every Lok Sabha poll since 1999. So, naturally, my constituents wanted me to be a Union minister”, says Gohain, the new minister of state for railways.

“The prime minister has given a target of connecting the capital cities of all Northeastern states by 2020. Northeast is a hilly and difficult terrain. I will try my best to reach the PM’s target”, he adds. After winning the Assam assembly poll and forming the first ever BJP government in the Northeast, the Modi-Amit Shah combo wants a quick expansion of the party in the Northeast. The formation of NEDA (North East Democratic Alliance), with a target of winning 20 out of 25 NE Lok Sabha seats in the 2019 poll, was the first step. That Gohain was allotted the railway portfolio is believed to be in sync with the BJP’s NE expansion strategy. If the railways expand in the region rapidly, the BJP may be better placed to dream of a joyride in the hills.