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Base Truths

By INDIA TODAY Special Correspondent Neeraj Mishra.

Maya Singh, Phaggan Singh Kulaste, Dalpat Singh Paraste, Baliram Singh, Shivraj Singh ... The list could go on. But do any of the names ring a bell? You can be excused if they don+t because not too many in the home states of these so-called leaders of the BJP know them either.

Some of the names would perhaps draw a blank among sections of the party itself, packed as it is with leaders at all levels in Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh. Base or no base, it hardly matters. The classic result: too many cooks spoiling the BJP broth and in the bargain helping the pallid ruling Congress earn stability points by default.

"Yes, it seems a bit too stable for comfort," admits a smug Chief Minister Digvijay Singh. Nothing, not even the acute shortages in power and water supply or the pathetic conditions of the roads, have been serious enough for Leader of the Opposition Gaurishanker Shejwar and the state BJP President Vikram Verma to call the Government on account. Union Cabinet minister Uma Bharati, who was among the few who vociferously protested against the Government's ways, is increasingly finding that there is little support for her agitation within the party. Even when Chhatisgarh was carved out, it was the Congress' Ajit Jogi who cornered the chief minister's post, a passive BJP making it that much easier. Fears about the BJP joining forces with the disgruntled Shukla brothers—V.C. Shukla and S.C. Shukla—proved misplaced and to Jogi's glee, the party also suspended Brijmohan Agarwal, its firebrand MLA, and eight others for dissent.

The BJP maintains that the current influx of leaders is an attempt to infuse new blood. Most of these leaders were also given key posts. Maya Singh, who is Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia's daughter-in-law, was first made the national president of Mahila Morcha and is now one of the four national general secretaries . Baliram Kashyap is the head of the Adivasi Morcha and Shivraj Singh heads the BJYM at the national level. Guding them of course is a galaxy of veterans like Kushabhau Thakre, Sunderlal Patwa, Kailash Joshi, Pyarelal Khandelwal and O. Rajgopal, all from the state.

The undivided Madhya Pradesh in fact has as many as seven ministers in the Union Cabinet: besides Patwa and Uma Bharati, there's S. Jatiya, Sumitra Mahajan, Kulaste, Ramesh Bais and Raman Singh. No other state or region in the country has such a wide representation in the party hierarchy and in the government. But notwithstanding the collection of cooks, the BJP broth remains unpalatable.

The situation, insiders say, has much to do with an over-dependence on the Thakre-Patwa-Lakhiram Agarwal combine, mainly to raise funds for the party. The general impression that Patwa is the arch fund raiser for the party gained ground during his two-and-half year reign as chief minister in the early 1990s. Unfortunately, it also led to the belief that the BJP was a party of traders. Over the years, even the younger lot got divided depending on whether they backed the combine or not. The detractors, while accepting Thakre's position as the pitru-purush (father figure) rallied around Kailash Joshi, Laxminarayan Pandey and Uma Bharti. During the 1998 Assembly elections, Lakhiram broke away from the Patwa faction to back a former protégé, Vikram Verma, for the chief ministership. Verma lost from his constituency and internal fighting in the BJP led to the party losing to the Congress.

Lakhiram, who has lost four elections, continues to maintain his hold over Thakre who as national president pushed through an agenda which saw Lakhiram's son, Amar Agarwal, being given a ticket from Bilaspur against all opposition. It led to 23 relatives of other BJP leaders getting assembly tickets and the result was a foregone conclusion. Lakhiram also managed to get Verma elected state president in July last against Patwa's candidate, Shivraj Singh, who was later compensated with BJYM presidentship.

"The current problem with the party is that it is led by too many people with no mass base," says a general secretary of the party who has been in charge of the state in the past. And that is true. Maya Singh has never contested an election; Lakhiram has never won; Verma lost from Dhar as a claimant of chief minstership; Patwa has lost four elections from his home constituency Manasa and has had to change base in almost every election; Shivraj Singh is unknown outside his Raisen-Vidisha Kirar community belt; and Thakre too is no acknowledged leader of the masses.

The resulting insecurity has seen some leaders with genuine potential relegated to the sidelines. Sartaj Singh, who won four Lok Sabha elections from Hoshangabad in a row beating such stalwarts as Rameshwar Neekhra and Arjun Singh, was denied the 1999 Lok Sabha ticket and today runs a hotel in Bhopal. "The party has made me vice-president in the state and I am doing as I am directed," he says with an air of resignation. Former Bajrang Dal president and Gwalior MP Jaibhan Singh Pavaiyya, who prompted Madhavrao Scindia to change his constituency, today finds himself in the wilderness. Similarly, master orator Dilip Singh Judeo, who is perhaps the party's only recognisable face in Chhatisgarh, is buried under the Lakhiram chess board. The ones being promoted, including Verma and Shivraj Singh, lack the potential to match those like Scindia, Motilal Vora and the Shuklas. The way things are, it could be a long time before the BJP wakes up to reality. And until then, the Congress will quite gladly continue to collect points.

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