Ahead of GST Rajya Sabha debut, BJP to decide Anandiben's replacement on Wed

BJP parliamentary board will meet at 9 am on Wednesday to deliberate upon who would be successor to Anandiben Patel as the Gujarat chief minister. Despite Gujarat being their home state, both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah took their own sweet time to convene the meeting of the highest policy making body of the party.[caption id=“attachment_2930520” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Prime Minister Narendra Modi with BJP president Amit Shah. AFP[/caption] Too preoccupied with the landmark Goods and Service Taxes (GST) Bill that will be moved in Rajya Sabha for passage on Wednesday, the duo ensured that the an atmosphere of bonhomie is built among all parties first before they decided to shift their focus on Gujarat. Both are also aware that keeping the state in a state of limbo for long won’t be wise politically. Following Anandiben’s dramatic announcement on Facebook to quit as the Gujarat Chief Minister on Monday, the BJP parliamentary board was to meet on Tuesday but was postponed as clearing the bottlenecks to the GST Bill was far greater priority for the Centre. Modi has kept a packed schedule for himself on Wednesday as the parliamentary board meeting on Gujarat will be soon followed by one on GST Bill at 10 am before Parliament starts for the day. More so, four of 12 parliamentary board members—Arun Jaitley, Venkaiah Naidu, Thavar Chand Gehlot and JP Nadda—are Rajya Sabha MPs while Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar is also a member of the board. Finance Minister and Leader of the House Jaitley, who represents Gujarat in Parliament, is the prime mover of the bill. He and all other members would have to be present in the House throughout the proceedings. The passage of the GST, a Constitutional Amendment Bill, is critical to establish Modi government’s resolve on reforms on the ground. The bill has evoked great deal of curiosity world over and domestically it has too many implications both politically and economically. Anandiben did touch a raw chord when she opted for social media to announce her resignation at a time when the entire party top leadership was busy building consensus for the GST bill. There is no doubt that the party top brass was unhappy with the outgoing Chief Minister for her failure to contain the Patel agitation as the Patels are a key vote bank for the party in the poll-bound state. To make matter worse, her relationship with Shah is far from being amiable. A Union minister told Firstpost that Modi is particularly keen to see that GST Bill gets passed in the ongoing Monsoon session. On several occasions, during cabinet meetings, informal meetings of senior ministers, executive committee and general body of parliamentary party, the Prime Minister has reportedly cautioned leaders not to shoot their mouths off even when provoked. The Prime Minister wanted the leaders to be particularly careful while uttering something against the Congress so as to deny any opportunity to the Grand Old Party to toughen their stand even more. His message was clear that the BJP could take tough positions on the streets and in elections, as was done in the last biennial polls of Rajya Sabha. But inside the House, the prescribed decorum must be maintained. On critical issues, the ministers concerned were expected to reach out to the opposition leaders and seek to build a consensus, something on the pattern of what Modi had said on his first landing in Parliament in May 2014. The strategy seems to be working in the ongoing Monsoon session, at least for now. Take for instance, the measured response of the BJP leaders to Rahul Gandhi’s recent jibe on the Prime Minister—Arhar Modi—during a Lok Sabha debate on price rise. Though Jaitley responded to Rahul’s barbs, his response was matured, restricted to facts, statistics and some smart one liners but sans any rhetoric. In the past, ministers and other party leaders have gone at length to retaliate against Rahul albeit politically. This time around nothing of that sort happened. A senior leader said that this was as per the party strategy. Another leader wondered why each time there should be a retort every time Rahul says something. Jaitley has been continuously engaging with senior Congress leaders—Mallikarjun Khadge, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Ananth Kumar and P Chidambaram—as also with CPM chief Sitaram Yechuri and other key opposition leaders. He held meetings with state finance ministers twice, once in Kolkata and then in Delhi to get feedback on the proposed law and move towards a consensus accordingly. Another Union minister said the Congress actually had no reasons to oppose the bill. It was piloted by them and now the BJP is pushing for its passage. The minister made it clear that the issue is not the numbers but the lack of right atmosphere to get the Bill passed. He said that this time around the party has built the right mood and it is hopeful that the GST will be smoothly passed in the Upper House. That the Prime Minister is focusing on a creating a friendly environment to overcome political hurdles was evident in the cabinet reshuffle undertaken last month. An impulsive HRD Minister Smriti Irani was shifted to the relatively quiet textile ministry while an aggressive Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu had to give way to Anant Kumar with SS Ahluwalia as his deputy. Standing on the threshold of a watershed moment that the Indian economy might witness in the coming years if the GST Bill gets the Rajya Sabha nod on Wednesday, it comes as no surprise that Modi and Shah chose to pick GST ahead of resolving the political turmoils in their home state Gujarat.