Speculations rife about changes in Bihar, BJP leadership after MoS Nityanand Rai given new responsibility

Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 15

While the "new BJP" under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah is rarely expected to conform to "market" speculations, the new role of Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai in the state elections has resulted in massive conjectures over "changes in party's Bihar dynamics", including deputy CM Sushil Modi being assigned a role in the Centre.

The BJP recently announced a 70-member election steering committee headed by Nityanand Rai for the upcoming Assembly polls in Bihar.

The minister of state for home affairs is the chairman-cum-convenor of the committee with the state unit general secretary Devesh Kumar as the co-convenor.

This has led to huge possibilities, one being the projection of Rai, Shah's deputy, as the BJP's next-gen in Bihar and senior leader Sushil Modi landing a berth in the Narendra Modi Cabinet

That the BJP lacks "sufficient in-house talent" at the Centre is no secret. This is one reason that it had to scout for ex-bureaucrats like Hardeep Puri and S Jaishankar to join the party and the government. Sushil Modi is someone who is an "in-house talent" on the lines of the party's top-notch leaders like late Arun Jaitley.

At the same time, he is also someone who is not considered as "close" to Modi-Shah duo. In that sense, Nityanand Rai is someone who is believed to be "close" to Amit Shah. The Home Minister trusts him enough to include him as a deputy in the important ministry.

It is also said that the BJP wants its own Chief Minister in the State and that much of it has been happening, including the ongoing tussle for political space between allies JD-U and LJP, falls in that realm

However, though, BJP leaders pooh-pooh the speculations. Reaffirming support to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar of the JD-U, who has been projected as the NDA's CM face, they call the tussle between allies as the "expected posturing" in a poll season. So far as Rai's new role in State is concerned, they call it "optimisation" of senior state leaders for the benefit of the party in the coming Assembly elections.

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