Victory by any means is the policy that Amit Shah seems to follow. Known as the Chanakya of Bharathiya Janatha Party ‘Niti’ (act), the 55-year-old is one such man who has driven the saffron party into a new era. He has been the most successful president of the party, as he was able to pilot his party into power from state to state.
Amit Shah is a clever strategist who plays chess not only on boards but in the game of politics as well. He is called Chanakya because he follows his philosophy in letter and spirit successfully and he can give BJP one victory after another without bothering about the means. Let us discuss the times when he proved to be the Chanakya of BJP.
Why is Amit Shah called the Chanakya of BJP?
2013 UP Elections and Amit Shah’s key decisions
In the 2013 UP assembly elections, Shah was the in-charge for BJP campaigns in the state. Shah individually managed the candidate selection, highlighting the candidate’s local clout and winning potential as the only criteria for selection.
He demonstrated Modi to utilize RSS volunteers for door to door campaigning, which proved highly profitable for BJP. He also focused on building Modi’s larger-than-life image as a powerful leader. And when the results were out, its allies won 73 out of 80 seats. Not only that BJP also achieved success in Legislative Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir, Jharkhand and Assam in 2016 except Delhi where they lost.
Maha UPA collaboration in Bihar, no problem says Amit Shah
In the 2015 Bihar Assembly Elections, BJP stood small with its minimal allies in the region. The party was no match to the joint forces of Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar in Bihar. The RJD emerged as a single largest party with 81 seats, followed by JD (U) with 70 seats and BJP with 53 seats. Lalu and Nitish marched towards forming a government in Bihar.
However, the grand alliance broke on 26 July 2017 as a result of resignation by Nitish Kumar. When reports of disquiet within the JD(U) emerged with the alliance, this was the time when Amit Shah stepped in to play his role. He met Kumar and announced that both parties will contest an equal number of Lok Sabha seats in Bihar. Amit Shah had once again remained victorious and invincible with his efforts in lifting BJP to greater heights.
Haryana, a state where BJP had never won
Haryana, a state where BJP had never won more than 5 seats of MLA, from a total of 90 seats and got a majority in the next election. How was it possible? BJP Amit Shah simply chooses not to declare any CM candidate in the state and he focused only on promoting PM Narendra Modi. He also held various leaders from various prominent communities, from other parties like Rao Inderjeet Singh, Birender Singh and others like RamBilas Sharma and Anil Vij, etc. These all mark themselves as the CM candidate and if BJP announced CM candidate, surely there would have been conflicting and that would have resulted in the loss of seats or might miss the chance of the Government formation.
A significant and hidden factor, which even nobody thought, was the Punjabi Voters, a significant factor for the win and that’s might be why Amit Shah led BJP appointed Manohar Lal Khatter as CM.
Karnataka rebel drama
On 12 May 2018, 222 constituencies to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly went under elections. Amit Shah noticed votes getting divided in the name of religion. To claim up his support he attracted Vokkaligas. His meeting of Swamiji, of Adichunchunigiri, has dismissed the hatred of Vokkaligas towards BJP. Now Vokkaligas do support BJP also. However, despite being the largest party in the assembly election results, BJP failed to form a government in Karnataka.
But the story did not end there, several MLAs from both JD(S) and Congress resigned on their own will. Congress blamed that it was Amit Shah who horse traded their MLAs to dissolve the government. It is quite common in politics to blame the opposition for all the failures of the ruling party and divert public attention from real issues. If Amit Shah has done something to create this crisis, it is merely rocking an already drowning boat. With the numbers game now favoring the BJP government, the Congress and JD(S) had to discontinue the government.
2019 Lok Sabha election
In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Amit Shah expanded over 7,000 leaders for nearly 500 poll committees across the country, with special focus on 120 seats that the BJP had missed in 2014, and brought in 3,000 “full-timers” across parliamentary seats.
Marching as party President, Amit Shah carried over 161 rallies and visited over 312 Lok Sabha seats, measuring over 1.58 lakh km, more than any other leader. Amit Shah declared the BJP will remain in government for 50 years if it wins the 2019 elections. With 2019 success, he can be esteemed to work at the “50-year” BJP rule in India.
Maha political twist
Shiv Sena, which split up with long-term partner BJP over its demand for full-time chief ministership, has been passed for now. The BJP had been mostly silent when the Sena, NCP, and Congress were trying to join an ideologically adverse alliance. Everything changed between 9 pm and 8 am. A maha political surgical strike, as Uddhav Thackeray declared it. BJP’ Devendra Fadnavis was sworn in as Chief Minister with NCP’s Ajit Pawar as his deputy just hours after a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress alliance looked locked and loaded to bring power.
Although Home Minister Amit Shah refused to have interfered in the matter and said that the task was assigned to Devendra Fadnavis, the party members still believe it was his strategy to bring BJP back in Maharastra.
These are Chanakya’s Neti Amit Shah never fails to follow
Neti 1: There is some self-interest behind every association. There is no friendship without self-interest. This is a painful truth one should accept.
Effect: He changes associates if it accommodates the interest of the party. He has no problems having an alliance with whom they criticized all the time.
Neti 2: You do not have to touch the fire to see how hot it is! Learn from other men’s mistakes.
Effect: He has discovered many important lessons from Congress and using them successfully now after BJP has come to rule.
Neti 3: A person should not be too honest. Straight trees are cut first and honest people are screwed first.
Effect: He does not tangle honesty with politics.
