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RIGHT
ANGLE
Intrigues
at the Very Top
What the
mess in Uttar Pradesh tells us about the Delhi durbar
By
Swapan Dasgupta
 Going
by Harold Wilson's famous aphorism about a week being a long time in politics,
it will not be unduly presumptuous to suggest that 17 months is an excrutiatingly
long time for prescience. That should be heartening news for new Uttar
Pradesh Chief Minister Rajnath Singh who has already been dubbed the BJP's
sacrificial lamb by the more impetuous among the editorial classes. But
before the party goes into a tizzy over premature obituaries, it may be
revealing for the leadership to ask why they are being written in the
first place. The answers aren't flattering and point to a larger malaise
at the very top.
Rajnath's
appointment as chief minister wasn't an idea that suddenly dawned on Atal
Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani — the two who really matter —
six months ago when the absurdity of persisting with Ram Prakash Gupta
became an inescapable reality. Even when the decision was taken in October
1999 to remove Kalyan Singh, the leadership was quite clear in its mind
that Rajnath was the natural successor. Gupta was yanked out of retirement
as a stop-gap measure only to facilitate Kalyan's smooth resignation —
the outgoing chief minister had made it clear he wasn't going to go peacefully
if Rajnath was his replacement. However, with Kalyan's expulsion from
the BJP, the Gupta option was blessed with instant obsolescence.
Granted
it would have been graceless to have dumped Gupta instantly, why did the
BJP persist with its helpless veteran for an extra six months? Why did
former BJP president Kushabhau Thakre stupefy the party by announcing
last July that the party would fight the 2002 assembly elections under
Gupta's leadership? Didn't the party make a laughing stock of itself when
Gupta suggested there would be a Ram Prakash wave in 2002 comparable to
the Ram wave of 1991? Was it fair of the leadership to burden Rajnath
with so horrific an inheritance and so daunting a challenge?
These awkward
questions have to be bluntly put to the prime minister, whose remote control
of Uttar Pradesh affairs has placed the BJP in this unenviable position.
The problem stems from Vajpayee's inexplicable dependence on state Urban
Development Minister Lalji Tandon. A long-time associate of Vajpayee and,
in effect, his constituency minder, Tandon's role in Lucknow has been
plain disruptionist. He sowed the seeds of indiscipline in the party during
his anti-Kalyan campaign and systematically soured relations between the
former chief minister and Vajpayee. Last year, as election manager, Tandon
mounted such an ostentatious campaign in Lucknow that Vajpayee's image
was sullied and his majority reduced. Again, it was Tandon who, much more
than Om Prakash Singh and Kalraj Mishra, was mainly responsible for persuading
Vajpayee four months ago that Gupta should stay on. That ridiculous decision
aggravated the sense of defeatism in the BJP and nearly caused the premature
death of the coalition.
That a political
nobody exploited his access to Race Course Road to enhance his stature
is understandable. But why did Vajpayee allow himself to be swayed? Flattery
and cronyism are occupational hazards of any prime minister and Vajpayee
isn't an exception. Thanks to a spell of ill health and immobility, he
has been cocooned in an atmosphere of intrigues and make-believe conspiracies.
The mess in Uttar Pradesh should warn him against allowing vanity to get
the better of his political judgment. He is too tall a leader to let insecurity
and vengeful conduct to sully his record.
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