Dec 14, 1998
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BJP The Parivar Hits Back After months of passivity the party wants the government to be accountable to it. If Vajpayee does not oblige, the battle could turn vicious. By Swapan Dasgupta and Harinder Baweja
To be fair, not everyone in the saffron family looked to divine intervention to rescue the BJP from an impossible situation. At a public meeting in Madhya Pradesh, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee asked a senior leader for his assessment. Very iffy, he was politely told. Any suggestions, retorted Vajpayee. Yes, replied the leader, "You should walk a little faster and more confidently. Your eyes appear half shut and your pauses are like rukavat ke liye khed hai (sorry for the interruption)". Such impertinence would have been unthinkable a few months ago but even personal attacks have become fairly commonplace in the post-election bout of recriminations. The rift between a despondent party and a beleaguered government has come out into the open. In an uncharacteristically assertive mood, BJP President Kushabhau Thakre brushed aside Vajpayee's feeble objections about inner-party squabbles being a factor in the polls and insisted on explaining the rout as an anti-incumbency and anti-price rise vote.
In a sense, the tussle over the Insurance Regulatory Authority (IRA) Bill has been transformed into a proxy battle between Vajpayee and the party for supremacy. "Not being consulted" has become a euphemism for "not being heeded". "When we sit down together, we keep returning to the same things," says BJP General Secretary K. Govindacharya. "There has never been any dearth of recommendations, only feet dragging and a reluctance to listen." Agrees General Secretary Narendra Modi: "It's not very encouraging to read about decisions from newspapers." Ironically, the BJP's charge against its own Government does not differ from the assessment of its allies. Trinamool Congress MP Ajit Panja remains bitter that the Government did not heed his party's warnings on rising prices. "We asked for a meeting on prices on September 27 and it was held only after the polls. That is alarming." However, the party is being disingenuous in palming off the entire responsibility for the electoral debacle to the Vajpayee Government. Since the general election, the party itself went into hibernation. There was no follow-up to BJP Vice-President Jana Krishnamurthy's report on party-government relations, prepared after the Gandhinagar national council meet last May. The RSS was allowed to veto Madan Lal Khurana's claim on the chief ministership of Delhi, despite glaring evidence of Sahib Singh Verma's unpopularity. The presence of a complete non-entity like Mange Ram Garg as Delhi BJP president didn't help matters either. In the guise of promoting grassroots consensus, the recommendations of Govindacharya and Modi on changing non-performing sitting MLAs in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh were disregarded. In Madhya Pradesh, for example, the BJP denied tickets to only 17 of its 111 sitting MLAs, whereas the Congress changed 64 of its 172 incumbents. Yet Madhya Pradesh stalwart Sunderlal Patwa feigns bewilderment. "I cannot explain the reason behind the party's defeat," he says. In a situation where onion mismanagement became the central focus, the party's own shortcomings are likely to be brushed under the carpet. "I do not think there was anything wrong with my government," says outgoing Rajasthan chief minister Bhairon Singh Shekhawat. "We just failed to assess the damage from momentary issues like price rise." Sushma Swaraj has also spoken about a "double anti-incumbency factor" at work in Delhi. This conclusion is bolstered by the BJP's own internal survey conducted in Delhi on October 31 where 50 per cent listed the achievements of its Government at the Centre as "nothing". As of now, the BJP and its coalition partners have reiterated their confidence in the prime minister's leadership but this may not be the last word on the subject. Beginning with a BJP office bearers meeting on December 7, followed by an elaborate brain-storming session at the RSS headquarters in Nagpur from December 9 to 15 and culminating in the National Executive meeting in January, the Sangh Parivar will grapple with itself for future direction. Vajpayee will not be the only one singled out for attack. There is considerable resentment at Home Minister L.K. Advani's failure and unwillingness to look beyond the narrow brief of his ministry. Khurana will be attacked for his indiscipline and Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha may be charged for his failure to promote swadeshi interests. If the IRA Bill becomes a major issue, hardliners are certain to ask why the BJP's own cabinet ministers didn't protest at the so-called "sell-out" to multinationals. Only HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi made dissenting noises in the Cabinet on the issue. Individual recriminations apart, the BJP is faced with a larger question. What next? With Uttar Pradesh tottering on the brink and the collapse of authority in Maharashtra, there is a realisation that any premature general election will be disastrous for the party. "Each day the Vajpayee Government continues, it costs the party dearly," says a fourth-term MP from Madhya Pradesh. Yet, given the fragility of the coalition, it is impossible for the party to promote its own distinctiveness. The VHP bid to "liberate" a shrine in Karnataka was drowned in condemnation and the Vande Mataram controversy in Uttar Pradesh only succeeded in forging a Muslim consolidation behind the Congress. In West Bengal, Mamata Bannerjee is jittery at the growing loss of Muslim support while Laloo Prasad Yadav's popular base hasn't withered away in Bihar. And Sonia Gandhi hasn't made matters easier by refusing to be in a hurry. The BJP can neither perform on its own terms nor opt out. After giving vent to their frustrations, the BJP will put the ball in Vajpayee's court. If the prime minister is magnanimous enough to concede that the party must be consulted regularly and have a say in the elaborate patronage network of the Centre, the crisis could be diffused. If, however, Vajpayee becomes obstinate or decides to reinvent himself, the real fun and games begin. --with N.K. Singh and Rohit Parihar |
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The most important lesson the BJP leadership learnt after the
drubbing in last month's three assembly elections was to disregard astrological
prophecies. After successive opinion polls and exit polls indicated a Congress sweep in
Rajasthan and Delhi and a nail-biting finish in Madhya Pradesh, many party leaders fell
back on the encouraging forecasts of at least two well-known astrologers. "We'll win.
It's written in the stars", was a common refrain at the BJP central office on Delhi's
Ashoka Road. They were also famous last words. 
That was only the tip of the iceberg. Seething with
anger at the Government's ineptitude, BJP activists felt this was the moment to air their
accumulated grievances. "The party is not being consulted ... There is no
participation in major decisions of the Government," said Thakre in an interview to
Aaj Tak. At last week's meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Party, the mercurial Minister of
State for Human Resource Development (HRD) Uma Bharati -- who has not attended office for
the past two months -- lashed out at her own Government for doing a U-turn on insurance
deregulation in violation of its manifesto. The prime minister took offence at her tone.
"My tone may be offensive but my objections are valid," Bharati snapped back.
Vajpayee tried an emotional number -- "If you think I can hurt the country's
interests, then what can I say" -- but even that didn't cut ice. That indefatigable
believer in conspiracy theories, Rajya Sabha MP K.R. Malkani even charged the Government
with succumbing to US pressure. The RSS-controlled Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh organised a
protest march on the opening day of Parliament and the Swadeshi Jagran Manch organised a
feeble dharna, apart from issuing press statements. 
