Union social justice and empowerment minister Thawarchand Gehlot’s elevation as Karnataka governor on Tuesday will create another vacancy in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s highest decision-making body, the parliamentary board.
Gehlot, 73, who is also the leader of the House in the Rajya Sabha, has been a member of the parliamentary board since 2006. The board currently has seven members, four short of its full strength of 11 members. Gehlot’s exit leads to the fifth vacancy.
Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan was the last BJP leader to be inducted into the party’s top decision-making body in August 2014 when the then president, Amit Shah reconstituted the parliamentary board.
Chouhan’s induction in 2014 retained the parliamentary board’s strength at 11 members till 2017 when parliamentary board member M Venkaiah Naidu went on to become the country’s Vice President. The board continued to function with 10 members, but more vacancies arose due to the passing away of three key party leaders over the following two years: Ananth Kumar in 2018, and Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj in 2019.
Over the past year, there has been speculation that party president JP Nadda will reconfigure the board that has seven members including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief JP Nadda. The other members of the top panel are Union home Minister Amit Shah, Union defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan.
{{/usCountry}}Over the past year, there has been speculation that party president JP Nadda will reconfigure the board that has seven members including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party chief JP Nadda. The other members of the top panel are Union home Minister Amit Shah, Union defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Union road transport minister Nitin Gadkari and Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan.
{{/usCountry}}In addition, BL Santhosh is also a member of the top panel because he is the BJP general secretary (organisation), a post reserved for pracharaks of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological fount of the BJP.
This is probably the first time that the board has had so many vacancies for so long, said a BJP functionary familiar with the matter. “Apart from the national office bearers who were appointed in September 2020, the party is yet to form the national executive and the central election committee,” the party functionary said on condition of anonymity.
The constitution also stipulates that one of the members will be the leader of the party in Parliament - Gehlot was named leader of the House in Rajya Sabha after Jaitley’s death - and another should be a general secretary in the party.
The board has the power to supervise and regulate activities of the legislative and Parliamentary units of the party and guide in the formation of ministries. It also has the powers to take note of any breach of discipline by members, office bearers of state units and take necessary action. The board also has the authority to guide and regulate all organisational units below the national executive.