The Hindu : First among unequals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 06, 2003

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First among unequals

THE CONFUSION OVER "who is going to be the BJP's mascot in the next general elections, Vajpayee or Advani?", to which the nation has been a witness ever since the Prime Minister during his recent tour abroad talked rather enigmatically of his "retirement" in the event of his latest initiative for friendship with Pakistan failing, has been further confounded, with Atal Behari Vajpayee as good as suggesting that it would be L.K. Advani. While Mr. Vajpayee himself chose, for his own reason, not to clarify what exactly he meant by "retirement" — quitting politics or just giving up on further peace initiatives — the irrepressible BJP president, M. Venkaiah Naidu, came up with his `twin mascot' formulation — Mr. Vajpayee, the man of "development," and Mr. Advani, the "iron man" — but only to retract the next day and concede the number one status to Mr. Vajpayee. And now, with the Prime Minister insisting, much to the discomfiture of Mr. Naidu, that the "self-confident" BJP would emerge "victorious" under the leadership of Mr. Advani, the issue is anything but settled and has inevitably landed the party in a messy controversy.

If Mr. Vajpayee had intended to hold out his "retirement" as a sort of threat to the hardliners within the Sangh Parivar and outside who were against any peace overtures to Pakistan, the ambiguity that characterised his statements lent itself to all sorts of interpretations and speculative theories, particularly those that impinged on the No. 1 slot in the BJP's hierarchy — a crucial issue for the party when Assembly elections in four major States are round the corner and the Parliamentary polls are just a year away. The fact that he allowed the ambiguities to persist and preferred not to neutralise such a spin-off — with all its potential for damaging the party's image — makes one wonder whether Mr. Vajpayee has wanted to use his "retirement" statement as a trial balloon of sorts, especially after Mr. Naidu had reacted to it the way he did. Mr. Naidu's prompt retraction notwithstanding, if the developments are seen as a renewed flare-up of the factional faultlines in the BJP's organisational power structure, the party leadership has itself to blame. After all, it is no secret that there are influential sections within the BJP and its ideological affiliates who, particularly after the "successful" Gujarat experiment in the electoral dynamics, are raring to revert to the hard Hindutva line and have little patience with the leadership of Mr. Vajpayee which is perceived to be guided by moderation.

Officially speaking, the BJP has let it be known for quite some time now (until of course the current controversy erupted) that Mr. Vajpayee would be its Prime Ministerial candidate in the general elections due next year. In fact, the party did give a serious thought to plumping for Mr. Advani in the wake of its victory in the Gujarat Assembly polls and, more importantly, encouraged as it was by the NDA partners' acceptance without demur of Mr. Advani as the Deputy Prime Minister, and a virtual successor-designate to Mr. Vajpayee for the No. 1 slot. It, however, dropped the idea, driven apparently by pragmatism and compulsions of realpolitik which dictated that Mr. Vajpayee who stands above the rest was the best bet at least for the coming round of elections. The NDA partners bent upon tying up with the BJP for the sake of power would be more comfortable with an instinctive moderate who veers towards a hard line on and off than with a permanent hardliner. For now, with Mr. Naidu and others in the higher echelons of the BJP swearing by Mr. Vajpayee's leadership, there is a palpable anxiety to demonstrate the party's solidarity. Even if the party succeeds in papering over the cracks, the spin-off from the episode is bound to haunt it for a long time and the controversy itself is unlikely to die down soon, given the wider political implications the resurfacing of strains in the BJP's power equations have for the Sangh Parivar and the ruling coalition at the Centre.

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