The Dhankhar Selection mystery
Contrary to popular perception that West
Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar was told by the Prime Minister on July 16
when he called on him at the PM office is completely misplaced. In fact, it was
Dhankar who had sought prior appointment with the Union Home Minister, Amit
Shah and also with the PM. He had sought the meeting as he was coming to attend
Governors' customary dinner with the out-going President, Ramnath Kovind.
He wanted to meet both the leaders to apprise them of the prevailing situation
in West Bengal. When Dhankhar called on Modi, the entire discussion was confined
to West Bengal only. Dhankhar was not given any clue either by Shah or Modi
that he is going to be picked for the VP's job in the evening. Though
Dhankhar's name had started doing the rounds in social media immediately after
photographs of his meeting with the PM were posted on twitter by the PMO, he
had no clue. Dhankhar was at the dinner table at the Rashtrapati Bhawan in the
evening when he received several missed calls and messages on his mobile phone.
Since it was a dinner engagement, he could neither take the calls nor
look into messages. But an Orderly of the Rashtrapati Bhawan walked up to his
seat and whispered that there is a message in his phone. Dhankhar later
confirmed to this writer that he got to know about his candidature at the dinner
in Rashtrapati Bhawan only. A highly senior leader of the BJP said that the PM
is a stickler to the protocol and known for keeping things to himself till the
end. If he had disclosed to Dhankhar his name for Vice President's post
earlier, the meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Board consisting of top leaders
would have become redundant. It was BJP president JP Nadda who told the board
that he had received three names for the VP's post and let the board decide.
Rest is history.
BJP's Big ambitions for 2024
Modi may be BJP’s triumph card for
winning elections after elections since 2014. But even then the party machinery
is working round the clock to fix nuts & bolts to ensure more and more
states are brought under the saffron flag. It may be converting defeat into
victory in some states by resorting to unfair practices to achieve the target.
But that’s the New BJP. However, those working behind the scenes (read RSS
here), tell a different story. The New BJP is promoting Martial Race in states
wherever necessary. If it is keeping Thakurs as Chief Ministers in UP,
Uttarakhand and Himachal it is retaining Rajnath Singh as number two in the
Union Cabinet. If the party brought a Patidar in Gujarat, it installed a
Maratha as CM in Maharashtra. Eknath Shinde was brought to cut Sharad Pawar and
Uddhav Thackeray to size at the cost of its own most trusted leader Devendra
Fadnavis. It is keeping Shivraj Singh Chouhan as CM to keep OBCs in good
humour. But Jyotiraditya Scindia and Narendra Singh Tomar are Union Cabinet Ministers
to woo the Rajputs. The BJP badly needs a senior Jat leader to help it in
Haryana, Rajasthan and parts of UP. It installed Jagdeep Dhankar as VP to woo
the Jats who is the first Jat in 75 years of India's history to don the mantle.
In Haryana, it already has Dushant Chautala, a Jat leader as Deputy CM. In
order to woo the Tribal in 109 Lok Sabha seats in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand,
Odisha and other states, it brought the first Tribal woman as President. Thus,
the BJP’s think-tank is working tirelessly for 2024.
Gehlot's Nashik nightmare
With the change of regime in
Maharashtra, fortune of many leaders may also change. It transpires that a
police case in Nashik against Vaibhav Gehlot, son of Rajasthan Chief Minister
Ashok Gehlot, may witness some interesting twists and turns. The case came to
light when a businessman in Nashik got a case of Rs 6.89 crores cheating
registered against Vaibhav Gehlot and 13 others in March this year. But the
Police under the MVA government was reluctant to register the case and the
businessman approached the court. The court directed the Police to register an
FIR. The case was transferred to the Economic Offenses Wing (EOW). Within days,
the complainant approached the court saying he would not like to pursue the
case against Vaibhav Gehlot . But the court did not proceed with as much
alacrity as the complainant. In the meantime, the Uddhav Thackeray government
fell and obviously, Gehlots may witness some turbulence. All eyes are on the
Nashik complainant whether he changes his tune after the change of regime in
Maharashtra. Ashok Gehlot’s brother Agrasen Gehlot had been raided
by the CBI in June and the Chief Minister is having sleepless nights.
