Why Amit Shah is less visible in public now, and skipped Bihar visit
Slammed after Parliament remark on Ambedkar, Shah is keeping a low profile; his suggestion that BJP candidate may be NDA's CM face in Bihar has ruffled feathers
Union Home Minister Amit Shah appears to be lying low after his major faux pax in the Parliament Winter session. His flippant remarks on Dr BR Ambedkar stirred up quite a big political row.
But is it a tactical move on Shah's part to disappear from the public eye? To such an extent that he is missing out on significant social engagements in ally-ruled states like Bihar?
His skipping a scheduled January 5 visit to Patna to attend an important engagement has raised eyebrows in the political circles in both Delhi and Bihar.
Damage control
Dr Ambedkar is held in iconic esteem by poor masses in the Hindi belt and beyond. Shah's move to juxtapose the regard for Dr Ambedkar with God and His worship in Parliament is seen as tantamount to ridicule of the Father of the Indian Constitution.
The BJP has been trying hard to mitigate the controversy. On his part, Shah has been conspicuously absent from public events in recent weeks.
All along, Shah has been an asset to the BJP. But, with his Parliament faux pas, he faces the risk of becoming a socio-political liability for his party. His staying away from Bihar last weekend is seen as an illustration of this.
Cancelling Patna visit
Shah was to visit Patna over the weekend for the birth anniversary of the late Sushil Modi, the veteran Bihar BJP leader and former Deputy Chief Minister. This was Sushil Modi's first birth anniversary after his death in May 2024. Shah giving it a miss could well be disappointing, to say the least, for his party colleagues in Bihar.
This becomes all the more glaring since there has been no official word so far about the cancellation, postponement or rescheduling of Shah's Bihar visit. After all, Bihar is set to vote in a new assembly later this year.
As NDA coalition partners, the ruling BJP and JD(U) need to get cracking on issues like seat-sharing and declaring the next Chief Minister face.
Bihar Chief Minister and JD(U) supremo Nitish Kumar has lately been cozying up to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In fact, Nitish visited Delhi recently to meet the kin of late Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and pay his condolences. He returned to Patna without seeing any of the BJP higher-ups including Amit Shah.
Also read: Amit Shah’s Ambedkar speech a big blunder that BJP bravado can’t hide
A Maharashtra in Bihar?
Nitish has begun a yatra to interact with the electorate, which was resumed after a week's break due to state mourning for Manmohan Singh’s death. Thus, he had no prior plan to receive or share any platform with Amit Shah during his proposed visit to Patna.
Now that Shah has skipped the event, attention has gone to the remark that he made last month at an event in New Delhi about Bihar’s next CM face.
“This is decided by the parliamentary board of the party,” Shah quipped in response to a question regarding the future leadership of Bihar.
Watch | Has Ambedkar row put BJP-Amit Shah on the backfoot? | Capital Beat
Obviously, Nitish has not taken kindly to this response. The fact that the BJP took the CM seat after the recent Maharashtra polls, relegating incumbent Eknath Shinde of the Shiv Sena to the Deputy CM post, might have added to Nitish's unease.
Tug-of-war
Thus, a tug-of-war between the BJP and JD(U) in Bihar is becoming inevitable.
But Bihar is no Maharashtra. The differences between the two states' social and political milieus are stark. The BJP must be glad the elections in Maharashtra took place well before Amit Shah’s Ambedkar remarks.
Also read: Ambedkar remarks | BJP govt asked 'X' to delete Amit Shah's RS speech: Congress
Unlike the Opposition parties that cried foul, the BJP’s NDA allies at the Centre and in states have mostly kept silent. The JD(U) is no exception to this.
But the Bihar-based party and more so its supremo Nitish Kumar could well have come to have reservations about the issue. This could have warranted the BJP holding back Shah from visiting Bihar.
