BJP veteran seeks Gadkari as Deputy PM, Shivraj as party chief

Lucknow, Jan 5 (IANS) Veteran BJP leader Sanghpriya Gautam dropped a bombshell on his party on Saturday when he demanded that Union Minister Nitin Gadkari should be made the Deputy Prime Minister while union Home Minister Rajnath Singh should be assigned the charge of the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister.

He also suggested that Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah must work hard in the Rajya Sabha while paving the way for former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan as the party President.

In a letter released to the media, the former union Minister also said that the incumbent Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, should be sent to do religious work.

Admitting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was one of the tallest leaders the country had produced, the BJP leader said that a repeat of the Modi wave in 2019 was in doubt.

"The Modi mantra is unlikely to work again in the forthcoming general elections and the party workers admit this in private and are suffering in silence," he said.

Alleging that there was widespread anger against the policies of the union government, Gautam said that the situation was so grim that if elections were to be held right now, the BJP will be routed in all states barring a few.

Citing the instances of changing the name of the Planning Commission and interference in the working of the CBI and RBI, the BJP leader also took his party to task for trying to topple an elected government in Uttarakhand.

The decision of his party to anyhow form governments in Goa and Manipur, he added, was not in the right spirit.

The 88-year-old was a Minister of State in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government.