What is the secret behind Amit Shah’s dizzying rise and the untrammelled power that he wields in the ruling establishment of India? The duo, Narendra Modi and Amit Shah, who swept the polls in the 2014 general elections, continue to rule the country with an arc of influence that is growing with every passing day. If Modi is the mind, Shah is the muscle. And it is this mind-muscle combo that is at work seeking to sculpt the RSS dream of a ‘Congress-mukt bharat’ and ink a saffron soaked script for India as its replacement.
Shah (52), who began his fourth year as BJP national chief this month, has much to feel satisfied about. The BJP has a government in 13 states and is in power with alliance partners in five others, making him one of the most successful helmsmen of the saffron outfit. The party has made deep inroads into the North-East. Shah strategised to win Assam, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, and bested the single largest party, Congress, to snatch Goa. Emerging as the single largest party in Maharashtra, it went back to team up with Shiv Sena to form the government here.
If his rise was spectacular, so was his fall and rise again. His name figured in the Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter case and he was arrested by the CBI in 2010 and spent three months in jail. Though granted bail in October 2010, he was barred entry into Gujarat. It was only in 2012 that the court permitted him to enter the state. He was exonerated from the case after the BJP came to power at the Centre.
Now, Shah draws his power from Modi and has proved equal so far to the trust reposed in him by his boss. What Modi’s mind sketches, Shah’s strategising executes. Neither he has any qualms in using means fair or foul in achieving their desired objective. The ends justify the means. In Arunachal Pradesh, they resorted to defection by 33 of the 43 legislators to form a government. The move to destabilise the previous Harish Rawat-run Congress government in Uttarakhand is another example. Moves are also afoot to engineer defections in the Congress legislative group in a bid to provide strategic depth to the JD(U)-BJP coalition in Bihar.
The best example of the party and government working in tandem to achieve a political objective is provided by the ‘fright’ Shah engineered in his all out bid to defeat Ahmed Patel, political adviser to AICC President Sonia Gandhi in the recently concluded Rajya Sabha elections in Gujarat. A routine election in which Shah himself, union minister Smriti Irani and Ahmed Patel were set to sail through turned into a nightmare for the Congress veteran as opposition legislators were poached and one of them made a BJP candidate to mar his chances. It was the lone JD(U) legislator who defied his party and voted for the Congress, which saw Ahmed Patel snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. This is the quintessential Shah in action.
In the entire operation of the latest Modi cabinet reshuffle, Shah remained the interface in both securing resignations and informing new inductees. During the exercise, Shah played the stentorian headmaster to mighty ministers who were reduced to playing errant school boys. The way one union minister was called back even as he was deplaning in Patna and ordered to take the same flight back to Delhi to put in his papers is well known. And as if this was not enough, even on the ride back from the Delhi airport, caught in a traffic jam, he was harangued on why it was taking so long to reach. Tales abound of the authority that Shah exercises over his organisation with a whiplash of a tongue and a pat and promotion depending on how he sees you are well known.
One needs to scrutinise the past to perceive the present and predict the future. 2014 was a turning point in independent India’s chequered history. These general elections binned the ruling Congress and brought a clear majority BJP government headed by Modi to power for the first time. It was after decades that the RSS backroom boy turned disciple of LK Advani got a chance to become a chief minister in 2001. Again, almost 13 years of strategising and brand building had gone into turning this ‘brand’ into prime ministership, pipping the very same Advani to the post. Shah also did not happen to Modi overnight. It was a trust and confidence that was built over decades and tempered in personal ordeals including prison. Through this trial by fire, Shah’s unswerving loyalty to Modi stood out. It forms the bedrock of the relations between the two. Shah has a knack of understanding what Modi wants and his tireless hard work takes care of the rest. He is a master strategist,a skillful organiser and as ruthless as his boss in executing the task on hand.
Modi’s appointment as chief minister of Gujarat in 2001 signalled the rise in Shah’s fortunes. In the Modi government that came into being post-2002, Shah held almost ten portfolios including home, law and justice, prison, border security, housing and parliamentary affairs. Though self-effacing, Shah soon expanded the footprints of the party into the gigantic cooperative sector of the state as well as into sports bodies. His own election victories also remained very impressive. He wrested control of the Gujarat Cricket Association(GCA) from Congress leader Narhari Amin and had Modi elected president of the body. He even inducted Amin into the BJP before the 2012 Gujarat Assembly elections. Shah not only did stellar work bringing most of the cooperative banks in the state into the BJP kitty, but helped do likewise with the district milk dairies. These measures helped tighten BJP’s (read Modi) hold in sectors which totally account for almost one-third of the Gujarat voter base. “Shah works meticulously. He studies areas he need to breach, identifies fissures and widens the crack to move in like a sledgehammer and demolish the opposition or buy out influential sections,” points out a party leader who has watched him from close quarters, but for obvious reasons would not like to be named.
A staunch Modi loyalist, Shah and his mentor are sharp studies in contrast. While Modi’s oratory and his political flamboyance attract mass attention and audience, Shah is a master of backroom operations. He prefers to be self-effacing, understands his boss and delivers tirelessly making him the ideal complementing arm of the present prime minister. His grassroot planning and attention to detail yields excellent results. Whether party president or not, Shah will remain an indispensable part of Narendra Modi’s scheme of things for a long time to come.
