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COVER
STORY, BJP
A
Sense of Permanent Grievance
The
home minister senses the growing distance between the Government and the
ideological fraternity that has nurtured the BJP but he appears helpless.
In managing a government effectively- and, overall, not too badly-the
BJP leadership has lost sight of the party. Nurturing a sense of permanent
grievance, the party has become listless, sullen and dispirited. Lacking
a focus of activity, it has turned its energies on itself. Indiscipline,
factionalism and a craving for power are the inevitable consequences.
"We compromised our ideology and now we have no basis for discipline,"
rues a senior party functionary.
The manifestations
of sullenness are in all-round evidence. First, there are those disappointed
at not securing ministerial berths-the ultimate prize for any politician.
Filmstar Shatrughan Sinha, one of the BJP's main campaigners in elections
since 1989, feels cheated and let down. He can't understand why he is
good enough to warrant a personal aircraft during campaigns but not good
enough to hold office. If his caste didn't deter crowds, why should it
deter the prime minister?
Sushma Swaraj,
whose energetic campaign against Sonia in Bellary was an important sub-plot
of the previous election, is miffed. She can't detect any justice in being
penalised for a defeat in Delhi two years ago that wasn't of her own making.
She has been offered party posts repeatedly but has turned them down.
Her logic is flawless: if the leader doesn't have faith in me, why should
I be importunate?
Madan Lal
Khurana, the public face of the BJP in Delhi, also nurtures a grievance.
He went out on a limb two years ago by standing up for Vajpayee against
RSS interference. Today he remains without either a job or role. His ambitions
are more modest: to lead the party in Delhi. Since that is deemed impossible,
he has floated his own Delhi Vikas Mahasangh that many believe is the
precursor to his formal departure from the party. If that happens, it
would be a setback to the BJP equal in magnitude to Kalyan Singh's exit
in Uttar Pradesh.
At one level,
these are individual expressions of unhappiness, perhaps even bound by
a thread of thwarted personal ambition. But there is a larger story. Since
the 1998 election, the BJP as a party has virtually ceased functioning.
It revived briefly for the 1999 election and then fell into disuse once
again. With party stalwarts in the Government managing their own portfolios,
the institutional link between power and the people has been weakened.
more...Hang-out
of Rent-a-Quote Has-beens
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