The precedence accorded to the party’s national spokesperson Anil Baluni over a galaxy of leaders known as old guards for the coveted Rajya Sabha seat from Uttarakhand is being seen by many as a watershed in the State BJP, for it heralds the advent of the younger brigade.
“It was a long due process. The old horses are now realising that they would have to yield place to the relative green horns as the party high command is acting now with a futuristic perspective,” said a BJP insider
Ever since its creation, the axis of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) politics in Uttarakhand revolved around Major General Bhuwan Chandra Khanduri (Rtd), Bhagat Singh Koshyari and Ramesh Pokhariyal ‘ Nishank’. Incidentally all of them adorned the chair of the Chief Minister at different point of time when the BJP was seated in the saddle of power. Their dominance in the matrix of the State party politics could be gauged from the fact that the saffron outfit had fielded the battle-hardened and time-tested trio for the crucial 2014 Lok Sabha elections from the State and all of them had sailed through the electoral battle with comfortable margins riding on the crest of the Modi wave.
Modi magic had endured during the Vidhan Sabha elections held early last year too as the party trounced Congress and got an unprecedented three- fourth majority. Political analysts opine that the mammoth majority the party enjoy in the Assembly has given enough of manoeuvrability space to the central leadership to promote the younger lot in the politics of the Hill state, resulting in Trivendra Singh Rawat being catapulted as the Chief Minister. The same trend of the party brass trying to get out of the rut of the dominance of the old horses is palpably evident in young Baluni being favoured with the nomination for the much-coveted RS seat. The buzz is on in the state saffron roost that the eyes of the brass is now trained on another young and dynamic leader Dhan Singh Rawat who is now a minister of state.
The party’s strategy to promote the younger brigade was an imperative in the wake of Major Gen B C Khanduri announcing his retirement from electoral politics. Besides, Bhagat Singh Koshiyari would turn 76 this summer and there is every likelihood that he would follow the lead of Khanduri and would not contest from Nainital-Udham Singh Nagar Parliamentary constituency in 2019 election. There are thus little options for the BJP high command but to bank upon the younger leaders who are being groomed to take up the batons from the veterans who are slowly leaving the scene.