Amit Shah

Shah started his political career as a leader of the student wing of the RSS, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, in 1983.[10][16] He joined BJP in 1987, one year before Modi joined the party.[14] He became an activist of the BJP's youth wing, Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), in 1987. He gradually rose in the BJYM hierarchy, in which he held various posts including ward secretary, taluka secretary, state secretary, vice-president and general secretary.[10] He became known for his management skills when he was the election campaign manager for Lal Krishna Advani in Gandhinagar during the 1991 Lok Sabha elections.[1][17]

In 1995, the BJP formed its first government in Gujarat, with Keshubhai Patel as Chief Minister. At that time, the Indian National Congress, the BJP's main rival, was highly influential in rural Gujarat. Modi and Shah worked together to eliminate Congress in the rural areas. Their strategy was to find the second-most influential leader in every village and get them to join the BJP. They created a network of 8,000 influential rural leaders who had lost elections to the pradhan (village chief) post in various villages.[10]

Modi and Shah used the same strategy to reduce Congress' influence over the state's powerful co-operatives, which played an important role in the state's economy. In 1999, Shah was elected as the president of the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB), the biggest cooperative bank in India. In Gujarat, such elections had traditionally been won on caste considerations, and the co-operative banks had traditionally been controlled by Patels, Gaderias and Kshatriyas. Despite not belonging to any of these castes, Shah won the election. At that time, the bank was on the verge of collapse, as they had accumulated losses of ₹36 crores. Shah turned around the bank's fortune within a year; the following year, the bank registered a profit of ₹27 crores. By 2014, its profit had increased to around ₹250 crores.[10] Shah also ensured that 11 of the bank's 22 directors were BJP loyalists.[14]

Modi and Shah also sought to reduce Congress' hold over sports bodies in the state.[10] Shah served as the president of the Gujarat State Chess Association.[16] In 2009, he became the vice-president of the profitable Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA), while Modi served as its president.[14] In 2014, after Modi became Prime Minister of India, Shah became the president of GCA.

Modi, who had become a general secretary in the party's state unit by the early 1990s, used his influence to get bigger roles for Shah. He convinced Patel to appoint Shah as the chairman of the Gujarat State Financial Corporation, a public sector financial institution that finances small and medium-scale enterprises. After Shankersinh Vaghela and some other leaders complained about Modi's growing popularity in the Gujarat government, the party leadership moved Modi out of Gujarat to the BJP headquarters in Delhi. During this time (1995–2001), Shah served as Modi's confidante in Gujarat.[14]

In 1997, Modi lobbied to get Shah a BJP ticket for the Gujarat Legislative Assembly by-election in Sarkhej.[18] Shah became an MLA in February 1997 after winning the by-election.[19] He retained his seat in the 1998 Assembly elections.[20]

PM Modi addresses a BJP National Council Meeting.

In October 2001, the BJP replaced Keshubhai Patel with Narendra Modi as the chief minister of Gujarat after allegations of inefficient administration. Over the next few years, Modi and Shah gradually sidelined their political rivals.[14]

Shah contested the 2002 Assembly election from the Sarkhej constituency in Ahmedabad. He won by the highest margin among all candidates, with 158,036 votes. He improved his margin of victory in the 2007 Assembly election, in which he won from Sarkhej again. [16]

During Modi's twelve-year tenure as the Gujarat CM, Shah emerged as one of the most powerful leaders in Gujarat. After winning the 2002 elections, he became the youngest minister in the Modi government and was given multiple portfolios.[1] At one time, he held 12 portfolios: Home, Law and Justice, Prison, Border Security, Civil Defence, Excise, Transport, Prohibition, Home Guards, Gram Rakshak Dal, Police Housing and Legislative and Parliamentary Affairs.[14]

In 2004, the Congress-led government announced its intention to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which they called regressive. Shah piloted the Gujarat Control of Organised Crime (Amendment) Bill through the Gujarat State Assembly amid an opposition walk-out.[21]

Shah also played an important role in convincing the Modi government to pass the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Bill, which made religious conversions difficult in the state of Gujarat.[10]

The Vice President and Chairman, Rajya Sabha, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu administering the oath as Member, Rajya Sabha to Shri Amit Shah

After Modi became the prime-ministerial candidate of the BJP, Shah's influence also increased in the party. They had been accused of sidelining other BJP leaders, such as Lal Krishna Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Murli Manohar Joshi and Jaswant Singh.[14] By this time, Shah had gained recognition as an excellent election campaign manager and was dubbed a "modern-day Chanakya and master strategist".[22] Shah was appointed as a BJP general secretary and given charge of Uttar Pradesh (UP). He was chosen not by Modi, but by Rajnath Singh, who had been impressed by the skills Shah displayed in wresting control of various Congress-controlled organizations in Gujarat.[10] The decision did not go down well with many of the party members, who saw him as a liability owing to the criminal charges against him. Political analysts such as Shekhar Gupta termed the decision as a blunder.[23]

Shah's political career, which had declined after his arrest in 2010, revived after the BJP's victory in the 2014 general election. In Uttar Pradesh, where Shah was the in-charge, the BJP and its allies won 73 out of 80 seats. Shah had been made in-charge of the BJP's campaign in Uttar Pradesh on 12 June 2013, less than a year before the elections.[14] Since February 2012, Shah had spent considerable time in Uttar Pradesh, where he tried to understand the reasons for the Samajwadi Party's victory in the 2012 UP Assembly elections. Shah realized the voters were dissatisfied with the Samajwadi Party, which he believed had failed to keep its election promises after the win. He also took advantage of the OBC voters' displeasure with the UP government's decision to create a 4.5% reservation for the minorities within the 27% OBC quota in government jobs and education.[14]

Shah oversaw the candidate selection, emphasizing the candidate's local popularity and winning potential as the only criteria for selection, as opposed to the candidate's party loyalty or ideology. His team estimated that only 35% of the BJP's traditional supporters had voted in the UP elections. Therefore, he focused on door-to-door campaigning at the booth-level. He set up a 7-to-10 member management committee for each of the 140,000 voting booths in the state. For each booth, his team collated lists of voters and reached out to them.[14] Shah's team used 450 GPS-enabled mobile vans (video raths) to reach out to the masses in remote areas, where media reach was negligible.[24] Shah covered 76 out of the 80 Lok Sabha constituencies. He also insisted on Modi contesting election from Varanasi.[25]

Shah convinced Modi to utilize RSS volunteers for grassroots campaigning, which proved highly beneficial for the BJP.[25] Although the RSS officially were not involved in electioneering, Shah used its volunteers to mobilize and monitor the campaigners. For example, the RSS volunteers would cross-check a BJP worker's claims of having targeted a given number of households.[14] Shah also helped organize "mega rallies" for Modi. Like other major political parties, the BJP provisioned one van per village to transport people to the rally venue. However, unlike others, Shah decided that the BJP would not provide money for hiring these vehicles. Instead, he declared that the party workers organizing the transportation would be the leaders of the BJP units in their villages. This strategy ensured several local village leaders developed a stake in Modi's victory.[10]

Critics accused Shah of trying to polarize the UP voters along the religious lines. While visiting Ayodhya for a meeting with the party's local committee, he raised the Ayodhya dispute. The BJP fielded three candidates accused of inciting violence during the 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots. These were seen as attempts to target the party's Hindu nationalist base.[14] An FIR was registered against Shah for a speech in Muzaffarnagar, where he urged the voters to seek "revenge" through their votes.[18] He also took advantage of Shia Muslim antipathy towards Sunni Muslims in Lucknow.[26]

Shah also played an important role in the BJP's election campaigning strategy outside Uttar Pradesh. He focused on building Modi's image as a strong leader. At times, he opposed even Modi on several strategic campaigning issues. For example, when Modi praised his opponent and prospective post-poll ally Mamata Banerjee, Shah insisted that the BJP must not divert from the "Modi-versus-all" tactic.[25] Shah was also responsible for forging the BJP's alliances with regional parties like Pattali Makkal Katchi.[18]

Amit Shah, Union Home Minister taking charge of office, in New Delhi on 1 June 2019. The Union Home Secretary, Rajiv Gauba is also seen.

Amit Shah taking charge as the Union Minister for Home Affairs, in New Delhi on 1 June 2019

Shah took oath as Cabinet Minister on 30 May 2019 and took office as Minister of Home Affairs on 1 June 2019.[38] On 5 August 2019, Shah moved a resolution to scrap Article 370 in the Rajya Sabha[39] and divide the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two, with Jammu and Kashmir serving as one of the union territories, and Ladakh serving as a separate union territory.[40]

In September 2019, Shah talked about how India needs one unifying language; he said the Hindi language should be spoken to unite the country and represent India in the world. In a tweet, he also appealed the Indians to increase the use of the Hindi language.[41][42]

On 19 November 2019, Shah declared in the Rajya Sabha of the Indian parliament that the National Register of Citizens (NRC) would be implemented throughout the country.[43]

In December 2019, he introduced the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, which grants Indian citizenship to religiously persecuted minority communities who migrated to the country before 2015 from the Muslim-majority countries of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. In Northeast India, the act raised concerns about the impact of immigration on local culture and politics, which caused people to protest against the Act. Elsewhere, the opposition parties criticized the Act's exclusion of Muslims as detrimental to India's pluralism. Shah insisted the bill was not anti-Muslim, because it did not change their existing path to citizenship.[44]

Amit Shah and Udit Raj

In 2010, Shah was accused of having orchestrated the extrajudicial killings of Sohrabuddin Sheikh, his wife Kauser Bi and his criminal associate Tulsiram Prajapati.[49] According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Sheikh had been harassing some marble traders of Rajasthan by demanding protection money. The CBI claimed that two of these marble traders paid Shah to eliminate Sheikh, along with police officers DIG D.G. Vanzara and SP Rajkumar Pandian.[50][51][52]

The CBI presented phone call records, which showed that Shah had been in touch with the accused police officers when the victims were in their custody. It also presented videotapes of Patel brothers' conversations with two of Shah's associates at the Ahmedabad District Cooperative Bank (ADCB).[53] The Patel brothers, who had several criminal cases against them, also spoke against Shah.[54]

Shah dismissed all the accusations against him as politically motivated. He pointed out that during his tenure as Home Minister, Gujarat was one of the states with a small number of police encounters in the country. He stated that he kept in touch with the police officers on the phone in the normal course of his duties as Home Minister.[55] He accused Congress of misusing the CBI and claimed that only the cases in Gujarat were being scrutinized, while the rest of the country had witnessed around 1,500 encounters during the same period.[56] He said if the CBI had any solid evidence against him, it would have been able to frame charges against him.[14] In 2010, Police Commissioner Geeta Johri, who first investigated the case, claimed that the CBI was pressurizing her to falsely implicate Shah in the Sohrabuddin case.[57]

D.G. Vanzara was also accused in the Ishrat Jahan fake encounter case, but the CBI did not charge Shah.[58]

Shah was arrested on 25 July 2010 in connection with the Sohrabuddin case. At one time, Shah was considered one of the main contenders for Gujarat Chief Minister. However, his political career was hurt by the arrest; many leaders in the Gujarat government distanced themselves from him. His fellow ministers considered him an autocratic person, who did not have good relations with his colleagues.[16]

When Shah applied for bail, the CBI raised concerns that he would use his political power to prevent justice from taking its course.[14] On 29 October 2010, the Gujarat High Court granted him bail three months after his arrest. However, the next day, when the courts were closed, Justice Aftab Alam took a petition at his residence to bar him from entering Gujarat.[10] Shah was thus forcibly exiled from the state from 2010 to 2012.[14] He and his wife moved to a room in Gujarat Bhavan, Delhi.[10] Later, the Supreme Court canceled his bail on a CBI plea. In September 2012, the Supreme Court granted him bail and allowed him to return to Gujarat. He then contested and won the 2012 Assembly election from the Naranpura constituency.[16] (The Sarkhej constituency had ceased to exist after delimitation.) In 2014, Amit Shah was effectively discharged from the Sohrabuddin case by a special CBI court noting a lack of evidence and political undertones to the accusations.[59][60]

In 2013, Shah was accused of having ordered illegal surveillance on a woman in 2009 during his tenure as a home minister. The investigative websites Cobrapost and Gulail released a set of taped audio conversations between Shah and police officer GL Singhal. The tapes had been submitted to the CBI in the Ishrat Jahan case and were leaked to these portals. The calls detail how the state machinery was used to surveil the woman and the IAS officer Pradeep Sharma (who was suspended by the Gujarat government). In the recordings, both Singhal and Shah repeatedly refer to a higher authority as Saheb, which is believed to be Chief Minister Narendra Modi.[61] Shah denied all the accusations against him; he called them political propaganda by his opponents.[14] The BJP's political opponents demanded a probe in the Snoopgate case. However, in May 2014, the woman approached the Supreme Court and stated that the surveillance on her was based on a "personal request",[62] and she was thankful to the Gujarat government for ensuring her safety. She requested the court to block any investigation, stating it would violate her privacy.[63]

During his time as a general secretary of the BJP, party members credited Shah with promoting Hindutva, encouraging Hindu voters to reject "protectors of minorities", and opposing Modi's attempts to reconcile with the Muslim community.[64] Shah convinced the Modi government in Gujarat to pass the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act in 2003, which requires religious conversions in the state – most of which are from Hinduism to other religions[65] – to be approved by a district magistrate.[10][66] Shah protrayed the bill as a measure against forced conversions, although critics claimed that the bill undermined the Indian Constitution.[10] Between 2011 and 2016, approximately half of the applications for religious conversion in Gujarat were declined by the local government.[65]

In 2014, EC barred Shah from conducting any public processions, marches, gatherings and roadshows in Uttar Pradesh due to speeches which were made to outrage the religious feelings and beliefs of different classes.[67] In 2018, Shah said: "Infiltrators are like termites in the soil of Bengal," and regarding the solution of this, stated: "A Bharatiya Janata Party government will pick up infiltrators one by one and throw them into the Bay of Bengal."[68][69]

In December 2019, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) asked the US administration to consider imposing sanctions against Shah if the Indian parliament passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill. USCIRF in its statement said: "CAB is a dangerous turn in the wrong direction; it runs counter to India's rich history of secular pluralism and the Indian Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law regardless of faith." The commission said that the CAB "enshrines a pathway to citizenship for immigrants that specifically excludes Muslims, setting a legal criterion for citizenship based on religion". The external affairs ministry issued a counter-statement in response to USCIRF by saying it was not based on facts and the bill was to grant citizenship to persecuted religious minorities who arrived in India and does not aim to strip citizenship.[70]