The moment Amit Shah was declared BJP's candidate from Gandhinagar, it was certain that he would be in the Narendra Modi cabinet if the NDA came back to power. And, when he was inducted in the Modi cabinet, it was certain that 55-year-old national BJP president would get the home portfolio.
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There was a grapevine that he would be given the all-important finance portfolio in the absence of Arun Jaitley. But, people who have seen Shah function under the then chief minister of Gujarat Modi knew for sure what portfolio awaited him.
Shah was a Gujarat MLA from 1997 to 2014, when he went to New Delhi as the national party president. He held the important home portfolio in Gujarat from 2002 to 2014.
Their (Modi-Shah) coordination began in 1995 in Gujarat when they did the groundwork for the first BJP government under the leadership of Keshubhai Patel. As a close confidante of Modi, Shah kept in touch with Modi when he was asked to leave Gujarat due to the power struggle between Patel and the then Gujarat BJP president Shankersinh Vaghela.
When Modi came back as chief minister in Gujarat in 2001 and later won a landslide victory in 2002 assembly election, Shah was made the minister of state for home, a post he held till he became the party president.
A person having superb command over administration and the police
force, he is credited with reforming the Gujarat police and modernising it. His move of spending money for modernising the police force also faced criticism in the CAG report then. It was under him that the Chetak commando force of Gujarat was trained by foreign trainers.
He does not leave any task unaccomplished. He was instrumental in BJP's hold over Gujarat Cricket Association, once controlled by the then Congress leader Narhari Amin, now with the BJP.
On the flip side, there have been a series of encounters under his stint as the minister of state for home, right from Sohrabuddin Sheikh fake encounter, killing of his wife Kauserbi, Tulsiram Prajapati to Ishrat Jehan.
There was case against Shah in the Sheikh encounter case. A few years ago, he was also behind the bars and asked not to enter Gujarat. However, he has been given a clean chit in the Sheikh encounter case. In Ishrat Jehan case, charges were recently dropped against former police officers D.G. Vanzara and N.K. Amin.
Gujarat state BJP spokesperson Bharat Pandya said he had faith that Shah would be able to do excellent work in internal security and would have zero tolerance towards terrorism. He pointed that Shah would also modernise the police force.
With the induction of Shah in the Modi cabinet, the team has indeed become stronger. But is it a succession plan by Modi or has he tried to cut to size someone who was increasing in stature?
Ahmedabad-based veteran journalist R.K. Misra said Modi needed someone close and Shah was a kind of person who would understand what the former wanted. Misra pointed out that Modi does not keep successions plans; he is someone who does not like people walking alongside him.
Former Gujarat Congress president Arjun Modhwadia, while congratulating Shah for becoming the home minister, said that in Gujarat he did “politics of one community”. In the nation, however, there is diversity from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, he said. Modhwadia alleged that, in Gujarat, Shah spread fundamentalism.
Independent MLA from Vadgam, Jignesh Mevani, refused to comment, but in a series of tweets listed out his expectations from the new home minister. The expectations include ensuring women security by working alongside the state governments, keeping a check on the rise in atrocities against dalits, Muslims and tribals across the country and curbing organised crimes like mob lynching.
