Amid cabinet rejig talks, Amit Shah holds crucial meeting with Jaitley, others

New Delhi:  The BJP President Amit Shah today held a crucial round of meeting with senior party colleagues including Union Ministers Arun Jaitley, Jitendra Singh, Narendra Singh Tomar and Nirmala Sitharaman and is said to have deliberated about party’s electoral strategy in Gujarat. Notably, the meeting also comes at a time when there is rife speculation about possible cabinet expansion of the Narendra Modi Government. Prime Minister is keen to enlist new faces in the Cabinet including from BJP and new entrants to the NDA fold — Nitish Kumar-led JD(U) and the AIADMK. “We discussed issues and strategy for Gujarat elections. No other topics were discussed,” said senior party leader and a key player for Gujarat affairs Bhupinder Yadav. The presence of Arun Jaitley and Nirmala Sitharaman — the new in-charges appointed for Gujarat election matters at party president Amit Shah’s residence is also understood from that perspective. However, presence of other ministers like Narendra Singh Tomar, PP Chaudhury, Jitendra Singh and BJP general secretary (Organisation) Ram Lal suggests that party leaders must have also spoken about possible Cabinet reshuffle. The Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has offered to resign recently owning moral responsibility for repeated railway accidents, sources have indicated that a few senior ministers like Kalraj Mishra may be moved out of the Cabinet and made Governors. “The entry of JD(U) nominees in the Cabinet is a foregone conclusion but talks are still on about the individual,” a source said amid JD(U)’s bitter internal row as Sharad Yadav has raised the banner of revolt. It is also not clear whether JD(U) chief will nominate any leader — who are not member of either Houses of Parliament. Two senior leaders considered close to Nitish Kumar — KC Tyagi and Pavan Varma are no longer members of the Rajya Sabha. Meanwhile, sources said a section of party leaders has sent in feelers to NCP to join the Ministry on the pretext that this would bring in “certain qualitative changes” in the Maharashtra politics wherein Shiv Sena and BJP no longer share the strong bond as used to be about a decade back. Telangana-based TRS has been also indicating about their willingness to do some business with the BJP at the national level. Prime Minister’s proposed expansion and reshuffle exercise has been necessitated by vacant slots in the Cabinet as well as to draw out political strategy with a clear vision for 2019 Lok Sabha polls. According to sources, the exercise could also mark some major organisational changes too as the party is more than keen to target winning maximum number of Lok Sabha seats from amongst 189 parliamentary constituencies in eastern and southern India. Prime Minister’s Cabinet expansion expected sooner than later has been necessitated by the vacant slots in the team as the then Defence Minister Manohor Parrikar had to be shifted to Goa, Information and Urban Development Minister M Venkaiah Naidu has moved as the new Vice President and former Environment Minister Anil Madhav Dave unfortunately expired. Moreover, the BJP chief Amit Shah and PM Modi would also like to focus on southern states including Tamil Nadu and Telangana as these will be the ground zero besides West Bengal, Odisha and northeast from where the saffron outfit would be been keen to pick up as many seats as possible in 2019. (UNI)