Vice-presidential polls: Will Modi-Shah pull another surprise?

The ruling BJP-led NDA coalition and Opposition parties are likely to announce their respective candidates for the vice-presidential polls next week, ahead of the July 19 deadline for filing nominations. However, neither camp has as yet given any definite indication of who they are likely to back in the August 6 election to pick the successor of M Venkaiah Naidu, whose term in office ends on August 10.

The prompt resignation of Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi from the Union Cabinet, on July 6, a day before his Rajya Sabha term ended, triggered fresh speculation on whether the BJP was set to back him in the race for the country’s second-highest constitutional post. However, sources in the party told The Federal that though Naqvi’s name was among several names under consideration, there is no finality on his candidature at the moment.

Also read: Yashwant Sinha is presidential candidate in largely symbolic fight

A senior party leader suggested that Naqvi, one of the BJP’s two most visible Muslim faces (the other being former Union minister Shahnawaz Hussain, currently a member of Bihar CM Nitish Kumar’s Cabinet), may in fact be headed to an important Raj Bhavan. The leader asserted that chances of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah – “the two men who will take a final call on our candidate” – backing a Muslim as the NDA combine’s nominee are “very unlikely”.

If this yardstick is applied to pick the NDA’s nominee, Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan and former Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla – other names that have been doing the rounds – may find themselves elbowed out of the race, too.

Also read: Adivasi outfits pin hope on Droupadi Murmu to counter Hindutva agenda

For the past several days it has been speculated that the Modi-Shah duo may back a Muslim candidate for the VP polls to offset the criticism that has come the BJP’s way from critics within the country as well as several Islamic nations following the condemnable comments made by sacked BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma against Prophet Muhammad during a TV news debate.

Another surprise from Modi-Shah?

Naqvi’s exit from the Union Cabinet and the BJP’s denial of another Rajya Sabha term to him has created an unprecedented situation that speaks volumes about a seemingly deliberate attempt by the saffron party to alienate Muslims from both ministerial and legislative positions at the Centre.

For the first time since Independence, the Muslim community – an estimated 15% of the country’s population – has no representative in the Union council of ministers or among the 392-member bloc of parliamentarians (303 Lok Sabha MPs and 89 Rajya MPs) from the ruling party.

A section of BJP leaders believes that the Modi-Shah duo may pull another surprise just as they did when they picked Droupadi Murmu for the July 18 Presidential polls. Sources said the possibility of Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, the only current member of the Modi Cabinet who was also part of former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s council of ministers, being propped up as the NDA’s nominee “cannot be ruled out”.

Close aides of Rajnath told The Federal that he has “no intention” of quitting active politics – something that being the vice president will automatically entail – and that “Singh’s administrative experience and the goodwill he enjoys among leaders cutting across party lines will serve the party better if he continues in government”. However, these aides conceded that if “they (Modi and Shah) decide to push him out of government under the guise of giving him an elevation, there really is nothing that Rajnath will be able to do”.

Also read: Nomination process starts for August 6 vice-presidential polls

Bringer of ‘strong message’

The section of BJP leaders claiming that Rajnath could be the “surprise choice” of Modi and Shah claims that if not the defence minister then the party’s top leadership would back someone whose candidature can also be harnessed to “send a strong political message to an important voting bloc of the party.”

A BJP functionary said the candidate “could be some other prominent leader from Uttar Pradesh or another Hindi belt state, or someone whose candidature sends a strong message to a particular community like the Dalits or backward castes… backing a Muslim may make sense if we have to send a message to the Islamic nations but it won’t serve us electorally as our core voter will not appreciate it… I feel, just as we have backed a tribal woman for president, for VP we should back someone from a community that we can woo electorally”.

Among other names that BJP insiders have been speculating over are those of Thawarchand Gehlot, Anandiben Patel (incumbent governors of Karnataka and UP respectively; Gehlot is a backward caste leader while Patel hails from the influential Patidar community of poll-bound Gujarat), J&K Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and even former Punjab CM Amarinder Singh, who is expected to merge his Punjab Lok Congress with the BJP later this month.

There are also some rumours of the BJP backing a leader from one of the southern states for the post in continuation of its efforts to woo the region that has largely ducked the electoral charms of the saffron party despite Modi and Shah’s best efforts.

BJP candidate assured of win

Unlike the Presidential polls where the BJP-led NDA will need to rely on parties such as Naveen Patnaik’s BJD and YS Jagan Mohan Reddy’s YSR Congress to ensure Murmu races past the 50% majority mark in the Electoral College against Opposition nominee Yashwant Sinha, the ruling combine is in need of no external help for victory in the VP polls. In contrast to the Electoral College for the President, which includes MPs as well as MLAs from across the country, voters in the VP polls include just members of both Houses of Parliament.

As such, in the 788-member Electoral College for the VP, with its 392 MPs as of today and nearly three dozen others from allies and friendly parties, the BJP’s candidate is assured of a victory against whoever the Opposition decides to field. Besides, as Murmu’s candidature in the presidential polls have proved, several members from the Opposition bloc could be amenable to voting for the ruling coalition’s nominee if the BJP picks a candidate that appeals to a specific region, caste or community that is electorally significant for one or more of its rivals.

Also read: Amarinder returns to political relevance; tipped to be in vice-president race

A dominant view among leaders of various Opposition parties who have already burnt their fingers by fielding former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha in the presidential polls is that they must, thus, wait to see who the NDA fields for the VP polls before announcing their own nominee. Sinha’s candidature, initially backed by 17 Opposition parties, has already created fissures within an already fractured Opposition. Opposition parties such as the JMM from tribal-dominated Jharkhand, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party, Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, former BJP ally Shiromani Akali Dal and even Asaduddin Owaisi’s AIMIM are set to vote for Murmu while the steadily growing rebel faction of the Shiv Sena too is expected to back her against Sinha.

As things stand today, Sinha is likely to end up polling fewer votes than what Meira Kumar, Opposition’s nominee against BJP-led NDA’s Ramnath Kovind, had polled in 2017. Worse, Opposition parties such as the Congress, Sharad Pawar’s NCP, the Left parties and Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress and others backing Sinha are bracing for the BJP’s expected charge painting them as anti-tribal and anti-women.

Opposition hunts for ‘good candidate’

Sources in the Opposition camp say the Congress, NCP, Left, RJD and SP are of the view that while they must challenge the NDA’s VP candidate they should choose a candidate whose identity will allow the Opposition to send a strong symbolic message against the BJP’s “fascist, anti-Constitution and anti-democracy” style of functioning.

“This is the message we wanted to send with our Presidential candidate too but we failed… there is a realisation now that Yashwant Sinha wasn’t the best choice and we should have waited to see who the BJP fields before putting up our candidate… we also need to think out of the box, our nominee doesn’t necessarily have to be a politician but someone whose commitment to the idea of India, to the constitution and our democratic values is beyond reproach; it can’t be someone who has the baggage of a past with the BJP as is the case with Sinha,” said a senior Opposition leader.

Also read: Murmu’s hometown Rairangpur has fond memories of ‘Droupadi didi’

He added, “leaders from the Congress have been speaking to Pawar, Sitaram Yechury, Akhilesh Yadav and other leaders of Opposition parties but no shortlist has been finalised as yet… we want to look beyond the pool of politicians just as the UPA had done when it backed Hamid Ansari; it isn’t an easy hunt but hopefully by next week we will have a good candidate.”