Union home minister Amit Shah and defence minister Rajnath Singh are among the eight election observers the parliamentary board of the Bharatiya Janata Party appointed for the four states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur on Monday.
The observers, a senior leader said, will be dispatched to help elect a chief minister in each of these states. As DH had reported before, the party is unlikely to form governments in any of these states before Holi as the time of Holi Dahan is considered inauspicious.
The party has also called a meeting of the Parliamentary party on Tuesday and has asked all its Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha MPs to be present at the meeting.
The party appointed Shah and former Jharkhand CM Raghuvar Das as observers to UP where the party won 255 seats. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been in Delhi in the past two days meeting PM Modi, Shah as well as party president JP Nadda to deliberate on the UP cabinet.
In Uttarakhand, Rajnath Singh will be assisted by union minister Meenakshi Lekhi. In the hill state, the party is facing an uphill task selecting a Chief Minister.
With sitting Chief Minister Pushkar Dhami losing from the Khatima seat, the party is now deliberating on the post. While there is speculation that Dhami might continue, a senior party leader had told DH last week that MLAs will be asked for names, and over five leaders are in the billing.
Financial minister Nirmala Sitharaman and law minister Kiren Rijiju will be dispatched to Manipur as observers, while in Goa the party appointed union minister Narendra Singh Tomar and L Murugan as observers. Pramod Sawant and Vishwajeet Rane are touted to be the faces in Goa. In Manipur, the party is likely to repeat Biren Singh.
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