India’s ruling party, BJP dropped two senior leaders, former party chief and current union transport minister Nitin Gadkari and MP CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, from the Parliamentary Board and brought in new faces for its current priorities with expansion in both social and geographical terms. The new inclusions include former Karnataka CM BS Yediyurappa, the veteran leader of politically crucial Lingayats; union shipping minister and former Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal, first tribal from northeast; chairman of National Commission for Minorities, Iqbal Singh Lalpura, first Sikh to have made it; Sudha Yadav, wife of a Kargil martyr K Laxman, head of party OBC unit who belongs to Telangana; and Satyanarayan Jatiya, known Dalit face from Madhya Pradesh. This has taken the total strength of the Parliamentary Board to 11 and is marked by an increase in the number of persons representing the "reserved" categories in relation to those from sections who are not eligible for quota.
The omission of the Union minister came along with the appointment of Maharashtra deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis, to the Central Election Committee which had also been reconstituted after former Union minister Shahnawaz Hussain and others dropped. Chauhan's exclusion was not unexpected. Although a veteran in his independent right, the MP CM, a prominent OBC face, has lost a part of the aura he had enjoyed after leading the party in back-to-back victories before the loss, Now he is on the same rung as UP CM Yogi Adityanath whose supporters had also appeared to be hopeful of a hard charging Hindutva figure getting a seat on the top decision-making body. Apart from the consideration for the support for Lingayats, the mainstay of the party in Karnataka, Yediyurappa, may help to balance equations in the faction-ridden state unit.
