The BJP has reconstituted its 11-member Parliamentary Board and the 15-member Central Election Committee this week and they are likely to remain in charge well into the 2024 general election. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s grip over party matters is absolute and the reconstitution of these apex bodies hardly alters that fact. In that sense, nothing fundamentally changes, and the changes reinforce the trend of Mr. Modi’s expanding footprint in the party’s remaking. Senior leader Nitin Gadkari, a former party president, and Madhya Pradesh CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan have lost their Parliamentary Board seats, while the new icon of the Hindutva camp, U.P. CM Yogi Adityanath, has not found a place. The former Karnataka CM, B.S. Yediyurappa, who holds sway over the Lingayat community and is crucial in electoral calculations in Karnataka has been brought back into the power structure, a year after he was asked to resign as Chief Minister. By inducting him into both bodies, the central leadership has conceded his indispensability. Also notable is the BJP’s agility to redeploy resources according to changing situations — Sarbananda Sonowal, a tribal face in Assam who was replaced as Chief Minister, is now in the Parliamentary Board. He is also a Union Minister.
BJP OBC Morcha head and Rajya Sabha MP K. Laxman from Telangana and Lok Sabha MP Sudha Yadav from Haryana are expected to be the party’s links to relatively new constituencies. Iqbal Singh Lalpura has become the first Sikh to be inducted into the Parliamentary Board, while Shahnawaz Hussain has been dropped from the CEC. Mr. Modi is particular about staying in complete control, but he recruits and deploys a diverse legion in his support. The BJP under him has achieved a balance between a disciplined central command and the autonomy of individual leaders who are in charge of particular tasks. While only a few of them have the capacity of Mr. Yediyurappa to bargain with the party, they do strengthen the relentless social engineering pursuits of the BJP. The party has the capacity to be flexible and can even reverse its decisions to manage its electoral prospects, as Mr. Yediyurappa’s rehabilitation shows. The dislodging of Mr. Gadkari, who has maintained an image of relative autonomy as Minister and a party leader, on the other hand, can be interpreted as a stern demand for absolute loyalty. That too is a sign of the changing relationship between Mr. Modi and the RSS, the mother ship of the Sangh Parivar that includes the BJP. Mr. Gadkari is said to be a favourite of the RSS, which no longer holds the same sway over the BJP as it used to. Mr. Gadkari’s exclusion also coincides with the inclusion of another Brahmin from Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis, in the CEC. The reconstituted Parliamentary Board and CEC of the BJP signal dynamism and tight control at the same time.
