BJP President Amit Shah’s entry into the top echelons of the Union Cabinet marks the most critical rite of passage for the government and the ruling party amid talk of former Union Health Minister JP Nadda succeeding Shah as the party chief.

The fact that Nadda, an affable, low-profile leader from Himachal Pradesh who has worked closely with Shah in the just-concluded elections, was not included in the Union Cabinet for a second term was perhaps a pointer to what’s in store.

However, there is still room for Shah to continue as BJP President as there is nothing in the party’s constitution that prevents him from holding two posts. Shah formally took over in July 2014 and is allowed two consecutive terms of three years each. As such, he has more than one year left in his second tenure.

The only convention that stands in the way is the “one man one post” rule applied by the RSS to keep ministers out of top organisational posts. Given the fact that Shah has joined the Cabinet and Nadda has been kept out leads to the conclusion that both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Shah are comfortable leaving the party President’s office door open for the former Health Minister.

Nadda’s advantage is that he is trusted by Shah and is sensible enough to follow the command and control structure put in place by Modi and Shah.

So, the BJP’s future gameplans – whether they relate to the upcoming Assembly elections in Haryana, Maharashtra, Jharkhand or the dismembering of the Trinamool Congress – can be executed smoothly with Nadda as the head of the party.

The most critical part of Shah’s transition is that having firmly established himself as a skilful organiser and manager of elections, the BJP President now has to prove his prowess as an able administrator in a big-ticket ministry.

However, Shah is not new to the government, having held multiple portfolios during Modi’s tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat. He was also a stock broker himself, and had admitted to making “decent money” in the market.

The vacation of Finance Ministry by Arun Jaitley on grounds of ill health is being seen as the most important indicator of Shah’s possible role in the new Cabinet.

As far as the industry is concerned, it can look forward to some tougher reforms and a possible step-back from the welfarist measures that were announced in the run up to the elections now that the BJP is back in power with a brute majority in the Lok Sabha.

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