Will BJP throw its weight behind Maya Kodnani?

While none of the senior party members are ready to comment on it and her defiance of SIT summons, party sources said she was never considered to be close to Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s camp. So, there is the least chance of the party putting its weight behind her.

“I am busy in an important function,” was all that state party president Purushottam Rupala said when asked over the phone whether Kodnani would be asked to step down.

After the party won the 2007 Assembly elections, Kodnani did not find her name in the list of legislators Modi had prepared to induct as ministers. As it was the third time in a row that Kodnani had been elected as MLA from the Naroda constituency, it was frustrating for her supporters not to see her becoming a minister.

Modi, according to party sources, did not want to induct her because of her changing loyalty, as she was earlier reported to be close to the Keshubhai Patel camp. But Modi is reported to have been forced at the last moment by BJP prime ministerial candidate L K Advani to induct her into the ministry. Her alleged role in the Naroda massacre cases, however, continued to haunt her, as several eyebrows were raised on her induction.

But the Sindhi community, to which she belongs, had welcomed her as she was the first community leader to have been given a ministerial portfolio ever since the state came into existence in 1960. In 1975, when the Janata Party came to power for the first time in the state, it had the lone Sindhi MLA, Thanwardas Khubchandani.

Gopaldas Bhojwani, who was elected to the assembly in 1998 on a BJP ticket, was not made a minister.

The Opposition Congress, meanwhile, has mounted pressure on the state government to force Kodnani to resign or drop her to ensure that the SIT investigation is not hampered.

Gujarat Congress president Siddharth Patel and Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Shaktisinh Gohil said, Kodnanimight influence the investigations in her capacity as a minister. So, it is necessary for her to step down for a free and fair probe, they have said.

Giving example of former Maharashtra Home Minister R R Patil, Mahagujarat Janata Party leader Sunil Oza said that nothing should prevent the BJP and Modi from dropping Kodnani.

“But then, you need to have the political will (for this) and the existing dispensation of the party does not seem to be having such a will,” he added.

The Naroda Gam and the Naroda Patiya riot cases are among the 10 most heinous of all the post-Godhra riot cases assigned to the Supreme Court-appointed team for reinvestigation.