June 22, 1998

Vajpayee cannot rely on colleagues to deflect criticism

Prabhu Chawla

With the kind of friends that he has in the BJP, which is headed by a cabal of geriatrics, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has no need for enemies. When he was being heckled and battered by an aggressive and, surprisingly, united Opposition in Parliament, he hardly got the kind of spirited support that he would have expected from his senior cabinet colleagues, including Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani.

During the entire first phase of the budget session, it was advantage Opposition all the way. Besides exposing its inability to govern, the BJP's pathetic performance in Parliament also proved that Vajpayee's cabinet colleagues were either inexperienced or ill-equipped to handle the fast-changing and complex political scenario. Barring the prime minister himself, most of the ministers turned out to be political novices. Their naivete ensured that their political and social isolation remained intact.

Parliament has rarely seen in recent times the spectacle of the prime minister -- instead of his senior colleagues or alliance partners -- being constantly on his feet in defence of his Government. In fact, Vajpayee has already set a prime ministerial record of sorts by intervening no less than than 20 times in five days in both Houses on issues ranging from Ayodhya to farmers' problems.

To add to his woes were the almost daily walk-outs by the AIADMK and a partial boycott of Parliament by the Trinamool Congress. The lack of enthusiasm in the BJP ranks was only too evident. It was only the Samata Party which thought it fit to counter the attack of the combined Opposition in both houses of Parliament.

The BJP's dismal performance was, however, not confined to Parliament only. The party failed miserably to cash in on its convincing victory in the just-concluded by-elections to 51 assembly and three Lok Sabha seats spread over 16 states. Curiously, though the Congress retained only 16 of the 18 assembly seats it held and surrendered two of the three Lok Sabha seats it had won last time, it was projected as the real winner in the first post-Pokhran II elections. In fact, two leading English dailies even sang paeans to Sonia's Congress in their editorials for winning more seats than any other party. Still worse was the underplaying of the humiliating defeat handed out to Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party by the BJP in Uttar Pradesh.

The truth, however, is that by winning 12 seats, the BJP has added three more to its kitty. Besides, the BJP and its allies like the Akali Dal and the National Conference won all the three Lok Sabha seats which were up for grabs. Pundits who predicted that the Telugu Desam would lose the minority votes on account of its support to the BJP were proved wrong when the party soundly thrashed the Congress in Andhra Pradesh.

By-election results are no barometer of public opinion. But when Vajpayee's detractors could convert their own defeat into a mandate against him and his policies, the least the BJP could have done was to successfully counter such propaganda. Vajpayee, it seems, is still a loner. Undoubtedly, he has few enemies, but he has even fewer friends.

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