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Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, January 8
A former minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Cabinet and founding member of the BJP, Sanghpriya Gautam, recently created waves when he suggested that if the party wanted to return to power it should anoint Union Minister Nitin Gadkari as Deputy PM and replace Amit Shah with Shivraj Singh Chouhan as party chief and Yogi Adityanath with Home Minister Rajnath Singh as UP Chief Minister.
Even though some BJP leaders dismissed his open letter as “incoherent musings by a spent force looking for political relevance”, they said “the success of Modi and Shah has rattled detractors, more such statements can be expected in the run up to 2019”. However, some saw it as an interesting development as Gautam tried to “show Narendra Modi and Shah the mirror”.
On allegations that “he was being used or prompted by their rivals”, the BJP veteran told The Tribune: “I am an independent person and have written the letter on my own. You think anyone in the BJP ‘jo ghulamo se bhari hai’ (which is full of yes men) will even dare to speak against Modi and Shah. “However, many (in the BJP/Sangh) have appreciated my letter,” Gautam said.