Sensing good prospects, BJP sends Jaitley to J-K

NEW DELHI: The BJP seems to have made up its mind to stake its claim to form the next government in Jammu and Kashmir with the support of six MLAs, including Independents, that it claims to have even though it is falling way short of the half-way mark in the 87-member Assembly.

PM Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and other leaders at the party’s parliamentary board meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday. PTI

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 24

The BJP seems to have made up its mind to stake its claim to form the next government in Jammu and Kashmir with the support of six MLAs, including Independents, that it claims to have even though it is falling way short of the half-way mark in the 87-member Assembly.

The party’s top decision-making body — the Parliamentary Board — is believed to have decided on that in a meeting attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and senior leaders Arun Jaitley, Rajnath Singh, Sushma Swaraj and M Venkaiah Naidu.

“The people of the Jammu region want the BJP to form the government and we cannot let them down. How can any government not have representation from Jammu?” sources say.

The Parliamentary Board entrusted one of its senior-most leaders, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, to oversee the possibilities of forming the government there after assessing various permutations and combinations and weighing all the pros and cons. He will be helped by party secretary Arun Singh.

For Jharkhand where now a Chief Minister has to be declared, general secretary JP Nadda and Vinay Sahstrabuddhe have been appointed observers to oversee the election of the leader of the legislature party.

According to BJP leaders, Jharkhand results have also broken the myth that the people of the state want a tribal as their CM and opened up the possibility of a non-tribal CM. If this is the case, then non-tribal Raghuvar Das appears to be the front-runner for the post.

Das has been the state party president and is believed to be close to national president Amit Shah. So he fits the bill and fulfils all the criteria. However, the party may consider one of the tribal leaders like Sudarshan Bhagat in case it decides to play to the tribal gallery.

The party did not name a chief ministerial candidate in Jharkhand and built its campaign around the Prime Minister and his development agenda, which paid off in the form of a convincing victory for the party there.