Tired and retired?

Atal Bihari Vajpayee has spent a lifetime being enigmatic. It is only fitting that what purports to be his parting message, too, appears to be somewhat inscrutable.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee has spent a lifetime being enigmatic. It is only fitting that what purports to be his parting message, too, appears to be somewhat inscrutable. For one thing, no one in his party had sought his retirement. In a country where, in 1977, a prime minister took office at the age of 81, Mr Vajpayee can hardly attribute his decision to age. As it is, all that the former prime minister did on Thursday was to announce that he was quitting “satta ki rajniti” (politics of power) — note, not politics itself. Presumably, he will remain the head of the NDA and the BJP parliamentary party till the next elections. And then, who knows?

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This is not to argue that Mr Vajpayee is still lusting for office. But what he is doing is to clearly signal his continuing role in shaping a party that he has built through most of his adult life. In fact, the true enigma of his five-minute speech at the party’s 25th anniversary celebrations were his references to L.K. Advani and Pramod Mahajan. It is difficult to fathom what he meant by referring to the two as ‘Ram’ and ‘Lakshman’. Was he equating Mr Advani — who sees himself as, at least, second-among-equals with Mr Vajpayee — with Mr Mahajan who is seen as a too-clever-by-half, distinctly second-rung figure in the party? Or, was he genuinely outlining the new line of succession? And note, he did not once refer to Mr Advani’s putative successor, Rajnath Singh.