Amit Shah's elevation means Narendra Modi is on his way to become the PM candidate

New Delhi, May 23: The recent developments in BJP have left nothing to doubt so far as Modi's PM candidature is concerned. It seems the central leadership has finally bowed to the immense pressure that was created by the rank and file of the party for declaring Narendra Modi as PM candidate in 2014 elections. Now it's no longer a question of ‘whether'. The only question to be asked is- ‘when' will the party officially declare him as its PM candidate?Although the party still maintains that BJP's parliamentary board will take a call on PM candidate, all indications suggest that Narendra Modi will be given a free hand in running the election campaign.Amit Shah's elevation as the UP in-charge of BJP is an indication of the green signal that Modi has been given by the party's central leadership for his PM candidature.Everybody knows that for BJP, the road to power at centre passes through Uttar Pradesh, the state that has 80 Lok Sabha seats. Narendra Modi can't catapult BJP into the hot seat of governance unless he does some miracle in UP. As on today, the party is in tatters in Uttar Pradesh. The electorate of UP is completely polarized between Mulayam Singh's SP and Maywati's BSP. And the two national parties, Congress and BJP, are vying for a distant third spot.The dynamics of UP electoral politics has changed so much in last few years that today BJP is left with no committed vote bank. The SCs are with BSP, OBCs with SP, Thakurs largely with SP, Brahmins have deserted BJP and are being wooed aggressively by both SP and BSP. Under these circumstances, the task is not that easy for Modi. He has to emerge as a unifying force for all these diverse sections of the society. Narendra Modi has the opportunity to emerge as another ‘Kalyan Singh' in UP politics. Kalyan Singh had created an unbeatable social engineering formula that hinged on a coalition of both backward and forward castes. Because of his adherence to hard-line ‘Hindutva', Modi is popular among the upper castes and backward caste support will come to him easily given the fact that he himself belongs to that community.Modi knows it very well and that's why he was pushing for the elevation of Amit Shah, his close confidant, as the state in-charge of UP BJP. This will help Modi in having a decisive say in candidate selection. Any mistake in selecting wrong candidates can pour cold water over his Delhi ambitions.It can be easily understood that had the party not made up its mind about Modi's leadership in next elections, Amit Shah would not have been given the charge of a crucial state like UP. Amit Shah, in any case, is not a political heavy weight and he derives his strength entirely from his proximity to Narendra Modi.Another indication of the party's decision came from Bihar. When Bihar's Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi made the statement that BJP's allies have no veto power over the selection of NDA's PM candidate, it came as a surprise to the political commentators in Bihar.It was Sushil Modi who always advocated the need for continuing the coalition in Bihar even if it meant upsetting Narendra Modi's PM ambitions. He was looked upon as the alter ego of Nitish Kumar by his own party men. The BJP workers resented the fact that despite belonging to BJP, Sushil Modi always cared more for the political interest of Nitish Kumar.But when Sushil Modi said that it should not be forgotten that Narendra Modi belongs to the OBC community and that BJP allies have no veto power over the selection of NDA's PM candidate, the message was clear – he has got the idea of which way the wind is blowing in Delhi headquarters of BJP. It is very much possible that the central leadership alerted leaders like him of the party's internal decision on Modi's imminent candidature for PM post. The astute politician that he is, Sushil Modi changed his tack immediately and lost no time in distancing himself from anti-Modi uttering of his good friend Nitish Kumar. Otherwise it was the same Sushil Modi who did not oppose Nitish Kumar when he insisted that Narendra Modi should not be allowed to campaign in Bihar assembly elections. Was he not aware then that Narendra Modi was an OBC leader and no ally has the veto power to show disrespect to Party's most popular CM? Obviously, Sushil Modi like all wise politicians has corrected himself lest it gets too late.The recent pre-poll surveys have further boosted the prospects of Narendra Modi's candidature. All these surveys indicate one thing – If BJP has to give its best performance then it has to fight elections under the leadership of none other than Narendra Modi. Without Modi's leadership, the party is doomed to perform poorly in upcoming general elections.These surveys have also indicated that if Nitish Kumar decides to break away with BJP then it's going to hurt him the most. Some of the surveys say that it will hurt both JD(U) and BJP while a few surveys predict BJP's tally improvising compared to last time, in case it goes all alone in parliamentary elections. In worst case, what the party can do is to make Narendra Modi the head of election campaign that will give him the free hand to run and manage the election campaign. Leaders like Nitish will then get a fig leaf so that they could not precipitate the matters before general elections. If the party and NDA are within striking distance of the magic figure in Lok Sabha , the party may hope for a rethink on part of Nitish Kumar because after all, even Nitish is a politician and not a saint.And in any case, just in order to save alliance in one state, the BJP can't risk the alienation of its own rank and file and that's why the party seems to have finally made up its mind on who the PM candidate will be.Therefore, it can be easily inferred that Narendra Modi is going to be the PM candidate of BJP and NDA, irrespective of whether some allies like it or not.