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Sulking
Saffron
As
the BJP wakes up to the problems of dissidence and ideological confusion,
what will the crisis add up to? And will the RSS worsen the situation?
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BUSINESS
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Monopoly,
So Long!
The
Government's vice-like grip over telecom gets a jolt with the opening
up of the long-distance sector without a limit on the number of entrants.
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Kiss
and Make-up
With
a perceptible softening in Japan's attitude, Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's
visit holds promise of a return to normalcy and opens new doors for economic
investment.
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Home |
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By design or otherwise, the BJP has had
a bad habit of being the focus of trouble for governments it is part
of. In its previous avatar as the Jan Sangh, it participated in Morarji
Desai's Janata ministry. That government collapsed in 1979 thanks largely
to the "dual membership" issue: the simultaneous affiliation
of Jan Sangh MPs to the RSS. In 1990 the BJP's withdrawal of support to
the V.P. Singh government was a fallout of the Ram mandir agitation, propelled
by other elements of the Sangh Parivar.  Every
ruling party has a similar menu of problems: dissidents, lobby groups,
wannabe ministers and has-beens who refuse to go away. For the BJP there
is an additional burden: chunks of its support system are wedded to a
rigid ideology. They see any dilution, which coalition politics naturally
entails, as a betrayal.
Not surprisingly
the disgruntlement in the BJP has come within a year of its being re-elected.
While some of the party's prime talent has been seconded to the Government,
other stalwarts have been sidelined altogether. All this has led to a
sullen mood. The national council, which usually meets every two years,
is being called to Nagpur later this month only eight months after it
was last convened. A new president takes charge of a party at once hopeful
and apprehensive. If he plays second fiddle to the Government, the drift
will continue; if he is proactive, the NDA allies could get restive.
Does all
this threaten the stability of the Government? What does it mean for the
BJP's future? To answer these questions we deployed two of our most experienced
hands: Deputy Editor Swapan Dasgupta and Associate Editor Farzand Ahmed.
As Dasgupta puts it, "The party seems to have lost the certitude
that, whether you agreed with it or not, marked it as different."
That, really, is the lesson-the BJP has formed a government but lost itself.
This does not portend well for the Government-nor for the country.
(Aroon
Purie)
Top
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 Web
Exclusives |
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TALKING
POINT |
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India
should take a stand, impose sanctions on Fiji says Mahendra
Chaudhry in an exclusive interview to INDIA TODAY's Deputy Editor
Raj Chengappa.
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REALITY
BYTES |
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 The
Government should target inflation and leave the exchange rate to the
market, says P. Chidambaram in Politically
Correct.
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COLUMN |
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 Not
just Nayla, all villages can be easily e-connected, says INDIA TODAY Associate
Editor V. Shankar Aiyar in AU
CONTRAIYAR.
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DESPATCHES |
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They are greying but their
lives are anything but grey. INDIA TODAY Special Correspondent Sheela
Raval meets some of Mumbai's 60-80 somethings who are raring to go
in Despatches.
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