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BJP, a party in quest of a future
Way back in the late 1950s, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his then lieutenant, L.K. Advani (both in their 30s), were depressed by the election results of their nascent Jan Sangh party in Delhi, they strode into a cinema hall showing Raj Kapoor starrer Phir Subah Hogi.
Way back in the late 1950s, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee and his then lieutenant, L.K. Advani (both in their 30s), were depressed by the election results of their nascent Jan Sangh party in Delhi, they strode into a cinema hall showing Raj Kapoor starrer Phir Subah Hogi.
It was Advani’s idea, being a film buff, that this was the best way to drown their sorrow. By the time film got over, Sahir Ludhianvi’s haunting lyric Woh Subah Kabhi to Aayegi (That sunrise will definitely happen some day) sung by Mukesh and Asha Bhosle had them both humming –- and hopeful.
But, today, as 2009, which has been terrible for the BJP, closes, the party may well have to do more than just hum a tune or wish for a better future.
When 2009 began, nobody in BJP thought it would get so bad as it turned out later, a senior BJP leader said.
“Though the assembly poll in Delhi and Rajasthan in 2008-end dampened the victories in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, we still thought we would beat the Congress,” said another party functionary.
Advani had been declared Prime Minister candidate in December 2007 in the midst of Gujarat assembly poll campaign, which became necessary to curtail an ambitious Narendra Modi.
But party chief Rajnath Singh was reluctant to back Advani, who had to issue a statement in January that he had no problems with Singh. There were two camps. The first jolt, however, came from former vice president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, who wanted to contest the polls. Other backward caste leader Kalyan Singh sealed his pact with SP, upset over ticket distribution.
Senior leader Sushma Swaraj did not mince words at a BJP conclave in Nagpur in February. She compared the BJP to a reluctant Arjuna in epic Mahabharat, who had to be goaded by Lord Krishna into fighting.
In March, Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik walked out of his party alliance with the BJP, painting it a loser.
Rajnath Singh made a controversial appointment, bringing Delhi businessman Sudhanshu Mittal as election in-charge for Assam.
That triggered Arun Jaitley to stay away from the sittings of the BJP election panel that cleared tickets. Varun Gandhi’s rabble-rousing speech caught on tapes and shown on TV left the party red in face. Many BJP candidates were upset he helped the Congress to consolidate among Muslims.
In April as the polls began, Advani tried to woo the middle class back, raising the issue of corruption and money laundering. A savage attack on PM Manmohan Singh, whose image among the middle-class was intact, boomeranged.
In May, after three rounds of the elections, the Congress injected confusion about Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar’s support for Advani. The BJP was at pains to show the NDA was still in one piece. But the scare of third and fourth fronts grew among the voters.
At the end, as the results showed, the BJP suffered a negative swing in every state. Its voting share had gone down 3.4 percentage points – compared to 2004’s showing – to 18 per cent.
A blame game tore apart the BJP. Rajnath Singh, of course, didn’t think he should be blamed for anything. Advani offered to
quit as Leader of Opposition and later retracted as squabbling leaders wanted to prevent their rivals taking charge.
In June, when Advani appointed Jaitley as Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha and Swaraj as his deputy in Lok Sabha. All hell broke loose. First, Sudheendra Kulkarni, Advani’s trusted aide, walked out, blaming the RSS for Advani’s failed bid to become PM.
Jaswant Singh’s stinging note flaying Advani for rewarding those who “botched” up the polls was leaked to the media. It was followed by Yashwant Sinha’s resignation, questioning even Advani’s election as leader in Parliament – just before the BJP could hold its first conclave on the polls. Arun Shourie likened Rajnath Singh to ‘Tarzan’ and an ‘Alice in Blunderland’.
Rivals in the states too bared their fangs. B.S. Koshiyari booted out chief minister B.C. Khanduri for the BJP’s failure to win a single seat. A defiant Vasundhara Raje held on as Opposition leader in Rajasthan till October.
A BJP’s chintan baithak (brainstorming session) in Shimla caused more problems. Jaswant Singh was expelled for his book on Mohammed Ali Jinnah. But the party could not defend its action, forcing even Advani to regret that action.
By August-end, the RSS wanted to play the surgeon’s role. A series of parleys gave a time-line for Advani’s exit, which took effect after Parliament’s winter session ended in December.
The BJP went to fight in Haryana and Jharkhand elections, learning no lesson. Bickerings were back. Aides of Rajnath Singh were accused of irregularities in ticket-distribution.
The infighting, however, made it easy for RSS’s blue-eyed boy, Nitin Gadkari, to be easily foisted as successor to Rajnath Singh. “You can’t install a man who failed in Maharashtra to run the BJP nationally,” remarked a BJP leader. “But, when we look back, nothing could have been as bad as Rajnath’s time.” Others said the RSS should have allowed the BJP to choose a better face.
But Gadkari, 52, as new BJP chief, took charge. He wants new work culture, performance audit. He wanted every BJP leader and worker to do social or developmental work -– instead of jostling for position in Delhi.
The big question is can the party turn into an NGO to recover its shrinking base? Also, can Gadkari infuse values in a BJP that doesn’t bat an eyelid before backing a “tainted” Shibu Soren just to enjoy power in Jharkhand?
