Growing rift between Narendra Modi and Amit Shah over Yogi Adityanath?

While there have been intense speculations about the Thursday afternoon meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP national president Amit Shah and Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and there have been connections made with the late evening meeting of senior Cabinet colleagues at Jaitley’s office, sources within the BJP have told National Herald that apparently the first meeting was to address growing rift between Modi and Shah.

Sources said that Modi is apparently not happy with BJP Chief Amit Shah, and his growing proximity to hardcore Hindutva faces like Yogi Adityanath. They said that Amit Shah was summoned to Delhi, in the middle of his Kerala roadshow, because Modi did not want to see Yogi Adityanath campaigning in Kerala.

Narendra Modi reportedly told Amit Shah that ever since the Gujarat riots in 2002, he struggled a lot to do away with his Hindu Hriday Samrat image and that putting Yogi everywhere was hurting that image.

Sources also added that Modi holds the view that the current economic situation is hurting BJP’s image and that of his own quite hard and bringing Hindutva at this point to the forefront may further add to the woes. He reportedly told Shah that Yogi Adityanath should not be one of BJP’s main campaigners in Gujarat.

Modi reportedly told Shah that development has to be the main agenda as that brought the NDA to power in 2014. According to sources, Modi told Shah that since 2019 was not far away, bringing Hindutva to the forefront might hurt the party’s poll prospects.

The sources added that Amit Shah has convinced RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and got a go- ahead to use Yogi Adityanath’s face for electoral gains in Kerala, Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

The sources further added that there was no talk of Arun Jaitley being replaced. He is apparently in a very strong position vis-a-vis his Finance ministry portfolio.