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BJP: LEADER Man of the Moment Once described as a mask of the BJP, Vajpayee's popularity today makes him bigger than the party itself. By Saba Naqvi Bhaumik
A man blessed with the ability to laugh at himself, Atal Bihari Vajpayee has often made self-deprecating jokes about the chant "agli bari Atal Bihari". As he prepares for poll '99, Vajpayee is chuckling at the slogan changing to "teesri bari Atal Bihari". The man who has been India's thirteenth and sixteenth prime minister must know that he's been touched by the hand of history. No longer a 13-day wonder, Vajpayee is emerging as one of the most popular non-Congress leaders of independent India. As his post-Kargil popularity touches dizzying heights, the drift and indecisiveness of his early months in office have been forgotten. On August 15 last year, Vajpayee had cut a sorry figure while delivering the prime ministerial speech. He left a shoe behind as he tottered to the podium of the magnificent Red Fort, made a drab speech bereft of the characteristic flourishes and had to be supported by security men as he almost collapsed afterwards. Not only did the prime minister of India looked uninspiring, he seemed completely unfit for office.
But the Vajpayee who will deliver the Independence Day speech in a few weeks is a transformed man. He has not only found his feet but there's a distinct spring in his step. One of his spin doctors has been pressing Vajpayee to compose a poem on the Kargil war, just the sort of gesture that has so successfully created the poet-politician persona. So far he has not obliged -- political office, he says, does not inspire verse. Vajpayee knows he no longer needs gimmicks to win adulation. Post-Kargil, he has transformed into the triumphant leader of a victorious nation. "He is riding the crest of the Kargil victory," says BJP campaign committee member Arun Jaitley. "Like Ronald Reagan in the US, Vajpayee has become teflon coated." If Vajpayee has finally been able to impart his regime with a sense of mission it is due to a sequence of events since the government fell on April 17. He got an opportunity to head a caretaker government for the longest period in India's history. Freed of the Jayalalitha albatross around his neck, he seized the chance to focus on performance instead of survival. Vajpayee also made the most of the grey area in the Constitution which does not define the powers of a caretaker regime and decided to continue as if he were heading a normal government. A less popular leader may have invited public displeasure for transgressing the line of constitutional propriety. Vajpayee could get away with it. As public sympathy over losing a government by one vote changed to public euphoria over the diplomatic and military victories over Pakistan, the prime minister knew he could even afford to ignore suggestions of restraint from Rashtrapati Bhavan. I&B Minister Pramod Mahajan admits that "everything has changed in the last 100 days". Earlier, the government tottered from one crisis to another. "In spite of the bus, bomb and Bihar we did not register as a performing government. But after Kargil, when Vajpayee steered us to diplomatic and military victory, he acquired a larger than life image. Overnight, respect has turned to reverence," believes Mahajan. Fate also appears to be smiling upon Vajpayee. There are visible signs of an economic revival. Inflation is at an all-time low, foodgrain production and foreign-exchange reserves are looking healthy and the Sensex is soaring. Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha's disastrous first budget is now a bad memory. Industry's suspicions about BJP's swadeshi policies have also been put to rest. As the summer of Kargil gives way to a monsoon-drenched poll campaign, Vajpayee is finally being praised for qualities other than oration. "In an age of the Laloos and Jayalalithas he comes across as a dignified old-world politician. Years of experience have given him a great sense of timing and instinct. He knew when to say no to Clinton's invitation, when to say yes to a phone call from Sharif. He needed no advisers," says a key PMO aide. A keen instinct for doing the right thing at the right time means that Vajpayee often has to pull up the radicals in his party. He knows that Kargil has worked to his benefit but also knows that openly exploiting it could rebound. A controversial proposal apparently made by Mahajan that the BJP celebrate August 15 as Vijay Divas was shot down. Economy with words means that Vajpayee rarely puts his foot in his mouth. And he does not hesitate to pull up his cabinet colleagues when they do: George Fernandes has often been told to shut up and even L.K. Advani's statements have been questioned. Most of the time, however, Vajpayee comes across as the voice of reason in a party known for its hotheads. His image is that of the right man in the wrong party, an image that gives him an appeal which cuts across party lines and makes him bigger than the BJP. Says a close adviser: "This time round, Atalji will not fight the elections as a BJP leader. He will fight as a national leader." Vajpayee's soaring popularity has also resulted in a subtle shift in the complex relationship between the leader and his party. Just a year ago, he was described as the BJP's mukhauta (mask). Today the mask has become the lucky mascot, the first among equals who has dwarfed other leaders. While Vajpayee has been on a roll, Advani's performance as home minister has been questionable. Advani still remains the party strongman and strategist but Vajpayee's growing clout is visible in the manner in which the RSS and VHP have been forced to downplay Hindutva. Also, though Vajpayee has been the BJP's prime ministerial candidate during the 1996 and 1998 elections, the party had always highlighted collective leadership and ideology. But this time round the campaign will focus entirely on Vajpayee. "In an ideological party like the BJP this is a big change," says Mahajan. Purists in the Sangh Parivar are not comfortable with this change. But prudence demands that they toe the moderate line for the moment. The BJP's second-rung leadership has not really come of age and only Vajpayee can carry the party's disparate allies with him. It is unlikely that Vajpayee can transform the core of an ideological cadre-based party like the BJP. But with his popularity growing by leaps and bounds, poll '99 will certainly see a presidential style campaign where Vajpayee's personality will overshadow ideology.
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