Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah takes his organisation's "minimum government" line very seriously. That's why his prime minister has pushed for smaller cabinets and when Shah himself got a chance to refashion the BJP's national executive, he has opted to trim it down by more than 30 members. That however means the BJP's top national body is also minimal on another score: it only has 13 women.
The recrafting of the group has made waves because of its political implications. Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, once touted as the next big thing in the BJP, has been left out, while controversial Members of Parliament Yogi Adityanath and Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti have been brought on board. The final list for Shah's National Executive features 178 members and invitees, compared to the 216 when Rajnath Singh was president of the party. (The room to cut down on the list is constrained by permanent invitees such as chief ministers.)
While the political storylines will point to further gossip about who's rising in the party and questions about why Shah has chosen to drop others, one thing is clear: the new BJP national executive is not so friendly to women.
It's not as if the BJP under Rajnath Singh was tremendously weighted in favour of women. His list featured 28 women from a 216-strong national executive, while the officially nominated members roster of 80 people featured 24 women. The rest included one ex-chief minister, one party whip and two special invitees. Under Shah, that number has come down dramatically.
The 111-strong official member list includes only eight women. The other five women come from the invitees section, two of whom are chief ministers, one ex-chief minister and two special invitees. Only 7.3% of the members of Shah's BJP national executive are women, compared to the not-so-stellar 13% during Rajnath Singh's tenure.
The women have been dropped for a variety of reasons. Minority Affairs minister Najma Heptullah – who is also the only Muslim in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet – is only a few months away from hitting the 75-year age limit that the PM set for cabinet ministers and is expected by most to be heading to a governorship afterwards.
But others like Members of Parliament Hema Malini and prominent national spokesperson Shaina NC have been taken off without much fanfare. Not counting the two chief ministers and one former one ‒ Vasundhara Raje, Anandiben Patel and Uma Bharti ‒ the only prominent female leader in the unit is foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, who doesn't command much clout in government.
Of those on the main members list, only Minister of State Nirmala Sitharaman plays a major role in government, followed to a much smaller extent by Woman and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi. The special invitees list, however, does have an unusual female entry: Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, who told Delhi's voters that they had to choose between a government of Ramzadon (the children of Ram) or haramzadon (illegitimate children).
We welcome your comments at
letters@scroll.in.
The recrafting of the group has made waves because of its political implications. Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, once touted as the next big thing in the BJP, has been left out, while controversial Members of Parliament Yogi Adityanath and Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti have been brought on board. The final list for Shah's National Executive features 178 members and invitees, compared to the 216 when Rajnath Singh was president of the party. (The room to cut down on the list is constrained by permanent invitees such as chief ministers.)
While the political storylines will point to further gossip about who's rising in the party and questions about why Shah has chosen to drop others, one thing is clear: the new BJP national executive is not so friendly to women.
It's not as if the BJP under Rajnath Singh was tremendously weighted in favour of women. His list featured 28 women from a 216-strong national executive, while the officially nominated members roster of 80 people featured 24 women. The rest included one ex-chief minister, one party whip and two special invitees. Under Shah, that number has come down dramatically.
The 111-strong official member list includes only eight women. The other five women come from the invitees section, two of whom are chief ministers, one ex-chief minister and two special invitees. Only 7.3% of the members of Shah's BJP national executive are women, compared to the not-so-stellar 13% during Rajnath Singh's tenure.
The women have been dropped for a variety of reasons. Minority Affairs minister Najma Heptullah – who is also the only Muslim in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet – is only a few months away from hitting the 75-year age limit that the PM set for cabinet ministers and is expected by most to be heading to a governorship afterwards.
But others like Members of Parliament Hema Malini and prominent national spokesperson Shaina NC have been taken off without much fanfare. Not counting the two chief ministers and one former one ‒ Vasundhara Raje, Anandiben Patel and Uma Bharti ‒ the only prominent female leader in the unit is foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, who doesn't command much clout in government.
Of those on the main members list, only Minister of State Nirmala Sitharaman plays a major role in government, followed to a much smaller extent by Woman and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi. The special invitees list, however, does have an unusual female entry: Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, who told Delhi's voters that they had to choose between a government of Ramzadon (the children of Ram) or haramzadon (illegitimate children).
