A new star in the BJP sky

When a former police constable, who has served time in jail, was appointed Gujarat unit chief, everyone was surprised. Now workers are laying bets on when he will be elevated to the Union cabinet

Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly paid handsome compliments to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Gujarat unit chief, C R Paatil, after the party’s superlative electoral performance in the Assembly elections in December. So generous was the praise that most party activists thought it would be Mr Paatil who would be elevated as national chief of the BJP. But J P Nadda has stayed on to fight another day, though Mr Paatil’s stars are in the ascendant.

This was not always the case. It would not be an exaggeration to say that when Chandrakant Raghunath Paatil (he was a simple Patil but