Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a former prime minister, led the first coalition administration at the Center to serve out a full term. In addition to strong chief ministers (including Modi) in various states, managing the BJP at the time also required negotiation abilities with other Delhi power centres.
The modern BJP is centred on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who guided it to significant victories in the general elections in 2014 and 2019 and will do so again in 2024. It is also governed by a high command that is never questioned. Who benefited moreu2014the BJP or Modiu2014is now a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma.
Source: TRS Clips
The most autonomous BJP Chief Minister is undoubtedly Uttar Pradesh’s Yogi Adityanath . He is no pushover; he is in charge of the state that provides the majority of the BJP’s seats in Parliament and was elected to a second term in the 2022 Assembly elections. Like Modi, he strikes a balance between social assistance programmes and Hindutva posturing. Adityanath is 50 years old, while Modi is 72, and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, who is seen by many as second to Modi, is 58 years old.
Elections will be held in Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan by the end of this year. The Congress is thought to be reasonably secure in Chhattisgarh, but Rajasthan may not be so lucky for the grand old party. Vasundhara Raje, the former chief minister of Rajasthan, is said to have the largest general support among contenders for the BJP, but it is also thought that the party high command does not favour her.
There is a rumour that Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, who is serving his fourth term in office, may step aside to allow another leader to take office as chief minister prior to the announcement of the elections. This model where the sitting Chief Minister is changed before the polls, perhaps to deflect anti-incumbency, has been adopted by the BJP in Gujarat, and also before the recently held polls in Tripura.
Yet, the preparations to defeat local anti-incumbency centre on a Modi campaign. Since 1985, no government has been re-elected in Karnataka, however the BJP under Modi is attempting to surpass new milestones even as it is eroding all other numbers. The narrative of Modi as an absolute leader will endure as long as he keeps delivering. There is, however, an inherent structural problem in any design that places all the weight on a central column.
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