National

Naidu remarks on Advani a surprise

By Harish Khare

NEW DELHI JUNE 3. The BJP president, Venkaiah Naidu, has surprised everyone by his announcement that come the next elections, the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, too would be projected as the party's mascot, along with the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee.

As Mr. Naidu put it, Loh purush (iron man) i.e., Mr. Advani should rhyme well with vikas purush (development man) i.e., Mr. Vajpayee. Mr. Naidu suggested that the decision was the outcome of the deliberations at a gathering of State party presidents in Hyderabad over the weekend.

The surprise is that the party's highest decision-making body, the national executive had met at Indore only eight weeks ago. The official word after the Indore conclave was that the party would once again put all its electoral eggs in one charismatic basket — that is Atal Behari Vajpayee.

The surprise is also in the timing. The surprise is that Mr. Naidu spoke at a time when the Prime Minister was abroad.

And back home, his party president virtually declares him only half a leader, who must share the frame with a Deputy.

Did Mr. Naidu speak with Mr. Advani's consent? Is there something new in Mr. Naidu's formulation? Is the country witnessing the opening shot in a new power struggle at the very top? Does the Prime Minister's "retirement" remark become more meaningful in the context of the Naidu move? All these questions are being raised.

Mr. Advani was initially marketed as "Iron Man" when the BJP/NDA came to power in 1998. That sales-pitch did not click and died a natural death during the Kandhar hijacking crisis in December 1999. Since then Mr. Advani's own spin masters have quietly buried the "Iron Man" myth.

Now suddenly Mr. Naidu resurrected the "Iron Man" talk. The assumption is that Mr. Advani's name brings some kind of value-addition to the BJP's support base, over "the Vajpayee vote".

However, most BJP-watchers believe that while at one time, especially during the 1991-1993, there was an "Advani vote", this support has withered away.

Unless Mr. Naidu claims once again that the media misunderstood him, the name of the game in this town would be to speculate on when Mr. Advani makes his next move.

The hard-nosed BJP observers believe that Mr. Naidu has made the Advani move as a damage limitation exercise, after having made the disastrous there-can-be-a-mosque-side-by-side-with-the-mandir remarks on the Ayodhya controversy.

A former Foreign Secretary said the term "Iron Man" was used in the context of Otto von Bismarck (called the Iron Chancellor), who had united the various Prussian principalities into a Reich.

"Mr. Advani can have no such claim to having played any unifying role. Rather the contrary," he added.

However, the Congress, the BJP's biggest rival, is only too happy to have Mr. Advani as an electoral rival. A Congress strategist put it: "Mr. Vajpayee is a popular figure, mud does not stick to him easily. We shall gladly have Mr. Advani as the mascot."

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