The Hindu : Staying in power... any which they can

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Sunday, Jul 07, 2002

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Staying in power... any which they can

The Vajpayee Government's trump card is that it has survived. A feat the best of political acrobats would envy. Neena Vyas on the state of the BJP.

THE TWO tallest leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party — Atal Behari Vajpayee and Lal Krishna Advani — have been thoroughly exposed over the last few years since 1998 when the party assumed power at the Centre.

In Uttar Pradesh, Mr. Vajpayee's "home" State, the party's electoral graph has been coming down steadily and it was reduced to the number three position in terms of seats won in the February elections. In Gujarat, adopted by Mr. Advani as his political base, the party was all set to lose the next Assembly round but for the communal carnage that has "rejuvenated" the organisation in the hope that a consolidation of the Hindu vote bank will pay rich dividends — hence the hurry to hold elections as early as possible.

Yet, the `big two' continue to maintain a firm grip, taking every decision under the purview of the party head or even the State unit chiefs.

Take the decision on replacing Jana Krishnamurthi with M. Venkaiah Naidu as party president. Party sources insist Mr. Krishnamurthi was asked to vacate the post mainly because he used the power of his office to appoint `prabharis' of different States without fully consulting the "big two". Nothing can be done without their concurrence.

Mr. Advani, recently elevated as Deputy Prime Minister, was quick to announce that Mr. Vajpayee would once again lead the party in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. But the fact is that the Vajpayee mascot can no longer guarantee a good harvest of votes.

As for Mr. Advani, not only the party cadre but also the larger Sangh Parivar is getting restive — despite tall boasts when he was BJP president before 1998, militancy in Kashmir got worse under his stewardship of the Home Ministry, and last year Amarnath `yatris' (pilgrims) were mowed down by bullets fired in panic by the CRPF which is under Mr. Advani's command (at one BJP national executive committee meeting, Sushma Swaraj lamented this fact). And despite all the rhetoric about `swadeshi' when in the Opposition, the Vajpayee-Advani team at the Centre has done exactly the opposite.

Even on Ayodhya, Mr. Advani's old stand that the issue was "a matter of faith" which cannot be decided by courts has changed after the sudden discovery that when in Government you cannot challenge the authority of the court.

The party's earlier boast that what it says it does no longer holds good. In fact it would be safe to say that it almost never does what it says it will do. The politics of coalition at the Centre and in some States has degenerated into the politics of opportunism and the politics of appeasement.

The attempt to ride two horses carrying the BJP's Hindutva flag in one hand and the National Democratic Alliance's so-called "secular" agenda in the other has only resulted in total ideological confusion among the party cadre and public bickering between the various wings of the Sangh Parivar and the BJP.

The below par performance in the Assembly elections in four States — Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Punjab and Manipur — finally served as a wake-up call.

It was decided to revamp the party and give it urgent attention, leading to the change in the top slot and other changes.

At the Goa national executive, Mr. Advani, who talked about massive changes in the party and the Government, hinted that the BJP would not compromise on its own ideological agenda, that it need not be defensive about the Hindutva issues. The elevation of Mr. Advani, the appointment of the former Bajrang Dal chief, Vinay Katiyar, as head of the Uttar Pradesh unit, the sending of RSS pracharak, Narendra Modi, as the Gujarat Chief Minister, and the recent decision to install Uma Bharti — a known Hindutva advocate — as the Madhya Pradesh unit chief, are all pointers to the party's desire to keep its ideological moorings in the Sangh philosophy not only alive but in the pink of health for the next Lok Sabha elections.

If the Assembly elections this year jolted the party into taking some "corrective steps", the Gujarat massacres have certainly helped create an awareness of the fascist potential of the Hindutva agenda.

And there seem to be reasonable grounds for suspicion, after pronouncements by institutions such as the National Human Rights Commission, that the carnage was directed and orchestrated by Sangh Parivar activists and the Government in power in Gandhinagar.

The motive was so obvious: the BJP had lost the support of the people, and the "reaction" to the Godhra incident was being used to gather together the scattered Hindu vote bank. And the party gave the game away when it openly expressed its desire to see early elections in the State — the idea was to use the communally divided society to retain power.

Now, there is also forensic evidence fuelling the suspicion that Godhra itself may have been the handiwork of criminal elements carrying out the dictates of their political masters in the BJP and the RSS to help provide the spark, the "provocation", for carrying out the mass murders of the minority community that followed.

Mr. Naidu had this to say on the problems before the BJP: "There are no problems in the party, but we need to gear up for the elections in coming March. An analysis of our performance in the last round of elections has shown that we need to take some corrective steps, therefore decisions regarding the party set-up in States have to be taken. We do not need to be apologetic about our stand. As a party we are free to take issues dear to us... we need to identify the issues for the next round of Assembly elections, and local issues in each of the States going to the polls will also have to be taken up."

The new BJP chief has conceded that gimmicks and slogans will not work, that both the party and the Government will have to "deliver" good governance. The new party spokesperson, Arun Jaitley, warned that "putting a spin" on events could no longer pay electoral dividends.

Mr. Naidu dismissed differences between the Vajpayee Government and the Sangh Parivar lightly. "There are bound to be differences in the thinking between the Sangh and the BJP. But we do not want to rake up unnecessary controversies."

Recently, an RSS resolution demanded trifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir, and the Government and the BJP promptly rejected it. The fact, however, is that Bal Apte, a BJP MP, was a member of the RSS committee which suggested trifurcation. Chinmayanand, another BJP MP closely associated with the VHP, routinely takes a view on Ayodhya that is different from the BJP stand.

The Vishwa Hindu Parishad again went back to its old stand on Ayodhya — where Lord Ram was born was a matter of faith and no court can decide it.

The implication is that Ashok Singhal or Praveen Togadia of the VHP know exactly where Ram was born. (They cleverly do not say that what is before the courts is not where Ram was born, but the title suit of the land where the Babri Masjid stood).

Although the BJP and the Government have said — what else could they say? — that they would abide by the court verdict, the fact is that the BJP and the Government have done everything possible to subvert the law in the Ayodhya matter.

In March, the Government, through the Attorney-General, virtually pleaded the VHP case before the Supreme Court only to be snubbed.

The Sangh's philosophy and views correctly reflect the thinking in the BJP, among its cadre and the top leadership. If they sometimes sound contrary, it is only because the RSS and its outfits are used by the BJP to start a debate and create public opinion in favour of the RSS view before endorsing it.

That happened with the Ayodhya issue where the VHP created the political climate, the BJP jumped in and harvested a rich crop of votes and parliamentary seats.

The BJP knows, and the Sangh knows, that the party depends heavily on campaigning by RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal cadres for any election.

All this apart, the Vajpayee Government's trump card is that it has survived, despite a coalition with over 20 parties. A feat the best of political acrobats would envy.

And it is this card that the BJP wants to play in the 2004 elections. Senior party leaders have said the main aim is to become the first non-Congress Government to last a full Lok Sabha term.

But at what cost? Politics at the Centre has become the art of clinging to power by gathering strength (denied by the electorate) from other smaller parties.

The coalition with the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh was born out of the desire to add numbers to the NDA just before the critical Lok <147,1,0>Sabha vote on the Gujarat massacres. In Tamil Nadu, the BJP's political bedfellow is the DMK, but that does not prevent it from flirting with the AIADMK — just in case it decides to change partners by 2004.

Not only are the "big two" in the party seen to be appeasing their coalition partners (mainly by offering ministerial berths), even within the BJP the reason for elevating someone and giving him or her a ministerial berth and denying another are hardly in tune with perceived capability.

The "logic" of bringing two film stars into the Council of Ministers is to ensure that they make their talent for entertaining available for the next elections.

While the argument for bringing Sahib Singh Verma in was to keep him busy and out of Delhi's BJP politics, the same line of argument saved Shanta Kumar's seat (to prevent him from becoming a headache for the Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister, Prem Kumar Dhumal). Delhi and Himachal Pradesh go to the polls next year.

As for good governance, why is that needed? Appeasing the allies with ministerial berths and supporting parties with funds for their States and helping another become a Chief Minister (the last much against his own party's wishes) can keep them all happy and voting for the Government.

That ensures the Vajpayee Government's stability.

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