The Nation: BJP: BJP's Kesri

India Today, January 11, 1999
Jan 11, 1999

BJP
BJP's Kesri

At a time when the party needs to become more purposeful to survive at the Centre, it has a president who cannot coin a slogan, let alone set the agenda.

By Harinder Baweja

Home Alone: BJP president Kushabhau Thakre If the New Year is a time for making resolutions, the BJP definitely needs to make one. More importantly, its President Kushabhau Thakre needs to ponder on it or the joke in party circles about him being the "BJP's Sitaram Kesri" may just stick.

The BJP's wise old man begins the year with a meeting of the party's National Executive in Bangalore and its political resolution once again talks of the need for the Government to improve its performance, but as a general secretary asks, "What about the party?" Indeed, in all the introspection sessions that followed the recent electoral debacle, the buck stopped at South Block alone.

If little is being said of the BJP as a party, it is because of its non-performing president who far from setting the agenda for the party cannot even coin a slogan. At a time when he ought to have been leading from the front, he is nowhere to be seen. It's eight months since he was elected party president, but Thakre is yet to take a single decision. While his predecessors took less than a week to constitute the national executive, Thakre took two months. To date, party general secretaries have not been allocated work and even on the crucial decision of working out a mechanism for increasing co-ordination between the party and the Government it is Thakre who is squarely to blame. "He was okay as general secretary in charge of organisation but lacks the vision of a president," says a party leader.

If his leadership is uninspiring, his ability to take decisions is virtually non-existent. Party insiders say his favourite phrases are "theek hai (all right)" and "dekhenge (we'll see)". Thus they were surprised when recently told that during Parliament's winter session there would be daily meetings with the president. They met, but only thrice, the more memorable part of these encounters being the snacks. At the first meeting, one leader suggested that party MPs should meet Sikander Bakht for a briefing on the Insurance Regulatory Authority Bill. Thakre's response: "Idea achha hai. Dekhenge." Ditto for an idea at the second meeting for a training camp for the newly elected MLAs from Delhi, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh: "Dekhenge". Says one of them: "The morning meetings became an exercise in sanction taking."

Even within the party, Thakre is often seen as an embarrassment. Attempts to make him media-savvy were put off after he linked rising prices to GATT. More recently, he said small states were not a good idea, shortly after the Government had tabled the statehood bills. He is most comfortable when talking about Madhya Pradesh, quite like the Congress' Sitaram Kesri was with Bihar. Says a BJP general secretary who works closely with Thakre: "As the party president, L.K. Advani used to take briefings from government secretaries on important matters. Thakre has dismissed suggestions of doing the same saying 'but it is all in the newspapers'." After the Pokhran tests, foreign diplomats called on him once, even twice, by which time they realised it was an exercise in futility.

With Thakre as its chief, little wonder the BJP is on auto pilot. He comes to office regularly and meets the few delegations that call on him. He writes no more than 20 letters a day unlike Advani's whose mail totalled at least a 100. Among the 20, most relate to weddings and namkarans, reveals an office-bearer.

Like Kesri, Thakre is no crowd-puller. Both have had long political careers spanning several decades, but have won only one election each to the Lok Sabha. And both came to occupy the high posts by virtue of the fact that, in their respective parties, they were the least unacceptable. The Congress was, however, more fortunate: when things were going wrong, Sonia Gandhi lost no time to show Kesri the door. Thakre remains party president till end 1999. Unfortunately, crucial assembly elections in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka are scheduled before that.

The debacle in the north in November should have prompted Thakre to indulge in some stocktaking. Nothing of the sort has happened. Thakre occupies a post held by the likes of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Advani who built the party from scratch. He perhaps realises it would be an awesome task living up to their reputations. The problem with Thakre is that he does not even try.

Issue Contents | Write to us | Subscriptions | Syndication