PSU boards become rehabilitation ground for BJP's Muslim faces?

Boards of public sector undertakings appear to have become a rehabilitation ground for BJP's Muslim leaders. Prime Minister Narendra Modi-headed Appointments Committee of the Cabinet on Tuesday had given a go ahead to appoint BJP national spokesperson Syed Zafar Islam as a 'non-official independent director' of national carrier Air India.

The department of personnel and training (DoPT) issued a statement to say Islam and former Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) chairman R K Tyagi, the other non-official director, will have a term of three years at the Air India.

A former investment banker, Islam had joined the BJP in April 2014 before Modi's coronation as the PM. He is among other new Muslim faces in the party who have been rewarded by Modi giving them spaces on the board of directors of public sector undertakings.

Previously, Shazia Ilmi who had crossed over from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) to join the BJP after Islam in 2015 January, was appointed as an independent director in Engineers India Ltd's board. And Asifa Khan, who had joined the party in Gujarat in 2012, too was christened as a non-official independent director of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL).

However, former union minister and national spokesperson Shahnawaz Hussain is out of favour in this dispensation since he lost the 2014 Lok Sabha polls.

Similarly, former JDU leader Sabir Ali, whose entry into the BJP had courted controversy around the time of last polls, is also struggling to be on the right side of the present Modi-Shah regime. Ali, a native of Bihar as Hussain is, had recently organised a meeting of backward Muslims here to educate them of the benefits of Modi government's move to accord constitutional status to National Commission for OBC.