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On Wednesday (April 22), on the eve of the first phase of assembly elections in West Bengal, it was not Prime Minister Narendra Modi but, Union home minister Amit Shah who was seen conducting a roadshow in Sonarpur Dakshin assembly constituency, in South 24 Parganas, part of the Greater Kolkata Metropolitan Area. Large crowds were seen lining both sides of the street, as Shah waved from atop his campaign vehicle. Earlier in the day, Shah posted a video where he was seen interacting with supporters at a poll rally who had their phones out photographing him across a bamboo fence, as the home minister asked them to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the crucial assembly elections, where the saffron party is going all out, after failing to form a government in the state despite three successive governments at the centre. 

The image of Shah entering parliament on August 5, 2019, months after first becoming home minister, with a plastic file and documents in hand, before proceeding to introduce surprise legislations that read down Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, revoking its special status, downgrading the state to two union territories, remains etched in India’s parliamentary history. However, it has been after the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, when the BJP was cut down to size, with Modi reduced to a minority, that Shah’s public facing stature appears to have grown. 

Not just from the man considered second only to Modi but as a star campaigner, the prime mover and defender of government business, and the man in charge of the BJP organisation despite its new figurehead.

In all this, questions have arisen over the role Shah plays in the Modi government. Whether Shah is simply the second in command, deployed by Modi, to carry out tasks, consolidating his politics. Or is there a succession plan being put in place, particularly as the BJP sets sights on the 2029 Lok Sabha elections, looking to minimise the possibility of a repeat of 2024. 

According to Zoya Hasan, Professor Emerita, Centre for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, the BJP which is “permanently in election mode” is “recalibrating for 2029” particularly in the face of domestic challenges and external pressures, including trade disputes with the Donald Trump administration and difficulties in projecting India’s position after Operation Sindoor, foreign policy headwinds, from strains in the neighbourhood to criticism over India’s stance on the genocide in Gaza and the war in Iran, that have dented Modi’s “Vishwaguru” image. 

“The BJP, permanently in election mode, is recalibrating for 2029. Shah, as a master of electoral engineering, is at the centre of it, bringing structural changes such as SIR, delimitation, and the push for ‘one nation, one election’. Alongside this, he is shaping and executing the right-wing populist agenda with a strong emphasis on majoritarian........

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