It is true that the president of a political party should be bothered only about the affairs of his own party and he/she does not have to be concerned about other political parties even in a country like India, which happens to be the world’s largest democracy. But the president of the ruling party has an altogether different role. This is the crux of this whole article. Read on!

Amit Shah has just been appointed for the second consecutive time as president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He will be the party’s navigator-in-chief till the general elections, due by May 2019.

Shah, 51, is the handpicked choice of none other than Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In today’s BJP only one man matters and that is Narendra Modi. If Shah is his choice it only reflects the kind of confidence he has in Shah and one cannot find anything wrong with that.

But president of the ruling party inevitably brings along an added responsibility — that he adopts a conciliatory approach toward the opposition parties to bring in the much-needed harmony in the national political discourse.

On that count, Shah is a poor scorer. In many ways, he is other side of the coin to Modi. Both are fire spewing and care two hoots for the naysayers. This is a dangerous signal for the Indian polity. If the ruling party’s biggest leader is a hothead and intolerant toward the opposition, then his number two in the party hierarchy should ideally be someone who is temperamentally just the opposite.

In other words, if the prime minister is a hard-liner then his party chief must be someone who can build bridges with the opposition because in a democracy like India the ruling party cannot ensure implementation of all policies of the government no matter what the numerical strength of the ruling party is in Parliament. But unfortunately, this is not so with Amit Shah. And this is going to be his single biggest challenge in the next three years.

Yes, his primary job will be to win as many elections for the party as possible. Five state assembly elections are round the corner — in West Bengal, Kerala, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry. BJP has not much stakes anywhere but hopes to put up a strong show in Assam and, if luck is by its side, in West Bengal too.

Shah was anointed as the BJP’s youngest chief in 2014 when the Modi magic was all-pervasive. But assembly polls in Delhi in February 2016 and then in Bihar in October that year brought him down with a thud when under the leadership of Shah the BJP lost both the crucial elections in a humiliating manner which triggered a revolt from the party veterans like L.K. Advani and Murali Manohar Joshi. Incidentally, all these party veterans kept away from the ceremony when he was anointed as the BJP chief for the second successive tenure last weekend.

But this shouldn’t be anything more than a storm in a teacup for Shah as the BJP veterans are badly sidelined and do not command any say over the party matters. The larger point being made here is whether Shah is making any inroads into the opposition camp and trying to be conciliatory to the opposition, which is of prime importance if the Modi government has to deliver in terms of performance.

The Modi government has just recommended imposition of President’s rule in a sensitive border state like Arunachal Pradesh. The state, bordering China, is being run by a Congress government.

The Congress party has cried foul, has challenged the Modi cabinet decision to impose President’s rule in the state before the Supreme Court, has approached non-BJP parties for support and has approached President Pranab Mukherjee himself to ensure that the Modi government doesn’t succeed in its designs. The president himself has even asked Modi government’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh about the reasons why the government wants to take this step.

The Congress party has gone on an overdrive in hauling the Modi government over coals for taking such a “draconian” step. It has gone to the extent of saying that the Modi government is subverting the office of the state governors and using governors to get after non-BJP governments across the country.

The government-opposition relations have touched a new low. This does not augur well for India’s famed democracy. But even more importantly, these developments do not augur well for Amit Shah as he starts his new and full three-year tenure as the BJP president.

Even more unfortunate is the fact that Amit Shah is known to be merely a “Yes Man” of Modi and not a statesman who can dare to give a contra advice to Modi. This is Shah’s biggest challenge and also his biggest delimitation.