Amit Shah-The Untold Story

Amit Anilchandra Shah

Amit Anilchandra Shah is an Indian politician who is currently serving as President of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and as a member of the Rajya Sabha. He is born 22 October 1964. 

Amit Shah

MP

Assumed office

9 July 2014

PM  -  Narender Das Modi

Preceded by - Lal Krishna Advani

President of  BJP

Shah was elected as an MLA from Sarkhej in four consecutive elections: 1997 (by-election), 1998, 2002 and 2007. He is a close associate of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and held a number of portfolios in the state government during Modi's tenure as Chief Minister of Gujarat. He was MLA from Naranpura, elected in the 2012 elections.

Shah was the BJP's in-charge for India's largest and politically most crucial state, Uttar Pradesh, during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The BJP and its allies swept the entire state, registering their best ever performance, by winning 73 out of 80 seats. As a result, Shah rose to national prominence and was appointed as the party's national president in July 2014. 

Under his leadership, the BJP achieved success in Legislative Assembly elections in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jammu & Kashmir,Jharkhand and Assam in 2016, but lost the elections in Delhi and Bihar in 2015. In 2017, he led the party towards a landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and marked the party's strong debut in Manipur, but the Akali-BJP alliance lost power in Punjab. BJP also won 13 seats in Goa and now tactfully runs a coalition government with Manohar Parrikar as the CM for the 4th time. 

Early political career

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Amit Shah started his political career as a leader of the student wing of the RSS, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, in 1983. He joined BJP in 1986, one year before Modi joined the party.  He became an activist of BJP's youth wing Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha  in 1987. He then gradually rose in the BJYM hierarchy, holding various posts including that of ward secretary, taluka secretary, state secretary, vice-president, and general secretary.  He campaigned for Lal Krishna Advani in Gandhinagar during the1991 Lok Sabha elections. 

In 1995, BJP formed its first government in Gujarat, with Keshubhai Patel as the Chief Minister. At that time, BJP's main rival Indian National Congress was highly influential in rural Gujarat. Modi and Shah worked together to decimate Congress in the rural areas. Their strategy was to find the second most influential leader in every village, and get him or her to join BJP. They created a network of 8,000 influential rural leaders who had lost elections to the  village chief post in various villages. 

Modi and Shah used the same strategy to reduce Congress' influence over the state's powerful co operatives, which play an important role in the state's economy. In 1999, Shah was elected as the president of Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB), the biggest cooperative bank in India. In Gujarat, such elections had traditionally been won on thecaste considerations, and the co-operative banks had traditionally been controlled by Patels, Gaderias, Teli and Kshatriyas. Despite not belonging to any of these castes, Shah managed to win the election. At that time, the bank was on the verge of collapsing, having accumulated losses of ₹ 36 crore. Shah turned around the bank's fortune within a year's time: the next year, the bank registered a profit of ₹ 27 crore. By 2014, the bank's profit had increased to around ₹ 250 crore  Shah also ensured that 11 of the Bank's 22 directors were BJP loyalists. 

Modi and Shah also sought to reduce the Congress hold over sports bodies in the state. Shah served as the president of Gujarat State Chess Association.  In 2009, he became the vice-president of the cash-rich Gujarat Cricket Association  , when Narendra Modi served as its president.  In 2014, after Modi became Prime Minister of India, Shah became the president of GCA.