Barely a day after a web portal alluded to impropriety in the rising business fortunes of Jay Shah, the son of BJP chief Amit Shah, the party had to deal with another bombshell: former Chief Minister Anandiben Patel said she would not contest the upcoming Assembly elections in Gujarat. Her reason: she had crossed the BJP’s permissible age of 75.

But the gutsy lady is unlikely to fade away in a hurry. After being unceremoniously replaced as Chief Minister in 2016, Anandiben declined a gubernatorial offer, saying she would remain in Gujarat. And she may not join the Margdarshak Mandal, the BJP’s ‘old-age home’ either. For over a year, Anandiben was has been seen an angry but silent lady, waiting for an opportune moment to strike at her detractors.

This she did on Monday, when the Election Commission arrived here on a two-day visit, preparatory to the announcement of elections.

Early in 2016, Anandiben’s camp had suspected Amit Shah’s hand behind a media exposé on the business associates of her daughter. Now, the Shah camp reportedly suspects the former CM’s supporters behind the fresh allegations against Jay Shah’s company, Temple Enterprise Pvt Ltd. Interestingly, it was the same journalist who authored both stories, although the outlets were different! And both senior leaders have been close confidantes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The BJP had barely ‘weathered’ the Jay Shah issue — Amit Shah’s son slapped the web portal with a ₹100-crore criminal defamation suit on Monday — that it was left shell-shocked with Anandiben’s letter to the party chief.

Gujarat’s first woman CM, who is seen as a tough, no-nonsense administrator, had been dropping broad hints about her unhappiness after being replaced by Vijay Rupani, a green-horn acolyte of Amit Shah, in 2016. A section of the BJP saw in her a ticking bomb, although the PM and other leaders tried to keep her in good humour by inviting her to most party and government events.

Amit Shah had even driven to her house for a two-hour meeting recently, seen as an attempt to douse latent fires at the time when Assembly elections are imminent. Anandiben was also said to have submitted to the BJP chief a list of around 45 of ‘her’ candidates for the polls.

Clearly, the BJP is worried at this sudden turn of events. Reacting to her letter, Chief Minister Rupani claimed on Tuesday that Anandiben’s decision was “not related to the elections, but a well-considered one”, while Deputy CM Nitin Patel claimed that she had acted her age and that it was a “slap to those who wanted to foment trouble in the BJP!”

Her influential but restive community, the Patidars (Patels), comprise around 15 per cent of votes in Gujarat. The Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) leader Hardik Patel’s group has revived in the last few weeks. In fact, Hardik even extended support to Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi who also visited the Patidars’ revered shrine at Khodaldham during his Saurashtra sojourn.

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