If it wins, BJP may instal RSS choice as Jharkhand CM

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to pick an RSS hand as chief minister should the party win the assembly polls starting next week, political analysts say.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to pick an RSS hand as chief minister should the party win the assembly polls starting next week, political analysts say.

This would be in keeping with the trend of Sangh Parivar’s expanding influence over governance and party affairs since Narendra Modi took power in May.

The elevation of former state BJP chief Raghuvar Das as national vice-president and parliamentarian Sudarshan Bhagat as minister of state in the Modi government, shows that the leaders with an RSS background are being given a place of prominence.

Both Modi and BJP national president Amit Shah have a strong RSS background.

Such speculations have also been fed by the fact that former RSS cadre, Trivendra Singh Rawat, was made the state BJP president this month, replacing Vinod Pandey
who did not complete a year in the post.

Should such calculations come into play, there is a possibility of the BJP top leaders approaching ex-RSS member and former chief minister Babulal Marandi, who currently heads his own political outfit, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha-Prajatantrik, to take the chief minister’s post, party sources and analysts say.

“It is a nationwide phenomenon and Jharkhand will be no exception,” Prasun says, citing the example of former RSS leader Manohar Lal Khattar has been picked as chief minister of Haryana.