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Misplaced
Guile
Long
considered politically naive, the Gujarat chief minister is a wiser man
now. But the shrewdness would prove worthier if employed in matters of
state, writes INDIA TODAY's Special Correspondent Uday Mahurkar.
When
Haren Pandya, Gujarat's minister of state for home and information, resigned
from the Keshubhai Patel ministry at the behest of the RSS last year,
it was widely seen as a tactical move. It was construed as the outcome
of the chief minister's failure to stand by him in his fight against Purshottam
Solanki, the deputy minister for labour and employment who had a criminal
background and whose brother Pandya had arrested on charges of attempt
to murder in a cable network case. The publicity-loving Pandya, who was
asked to continue in office, emerged as a hero and even became the sole
spokesman of the government on key issues. It was, as he must have thought,
the golden period of his political career.
What Pandya, however, did not realise was that Patel would one day make
him pay the price for projecting him in bad light. It took almost a year
to get back but when the chief minister divested Pandya of the information
portfolio last fortnight, there was no mistaking his motives. By asking
Pandya to give up the post and vesting it with his rival Bharat Barot,
the minister for higher education and a foe of both the RSS and national
BJP General Secretary Narendra Modi, Patel had effectively chastened Pandya.
The incident was an emphatic statement of the chief minister's growing
guile. Long considered politically naive, Patel is now a shrewd man. Political
observers note that the cunning in him had been carefully cultivated after
his old rival Shankarsinh Vaghela sent him packing in 1995. Behind that
straightforward exterior is a great survivalist, who doesn't hesitate
to extract political revenge and who will go to any lengths to cut his
enemies to size and emerge from the shadow of the Sangh Parivar.
Unlike other politicians, however, Patel is not reckless. He strikes at
an opportune time, only when he gets a public or party issue to use as
a camouflage. In fact, this has become the hallmark of his current political
style. In Pandya's case too, Patel had given the minister a long rope
before "teaching him a lesson". The opportunity to act came
when a local daily carried a defamatory article on the government. Some
ministers raised a hue and cry about it at a Cabinet meeting, indicating
that Pandya had failed as information minister. Patel cashed in on the
discontent and asked the recalcitrant ministers whether they were willing
to take Pandya's place. Two of them refused while the third, Barot, accepted
the offer. The chief minister lost no time in making his next move. In
a two-liner announcement to the press, he said, "Harenbhai is too
burdened by the home portfolio. It is decided to take the information
portfolio from him and give it to Bharatbhai."
The move, in many ways, was similar to the manner in which Patel dealt
with former minister for Narmada development Jaynarayan Vyas some months
ago. A highly qualified technocrat, the minister had put Medha Patkar
and her anti-Narmada activists on the defensive by effectively projecting
the benefits of the project and enlisting media support. His growing public
image and his hush-hush anti-Patel campaign was too much for the chief
minister to stomach. But the wily Patel waited patiently to strike back.
The opportunity came when, in a minor discussion at a cabinet meeting,
the impulsive Vyas accused Patel of lying. Realising his folly, Vyas apologised
minutes later but the die had been cast. No sooner had Vyas reached his
ministerial chamber than he received a two-line communication from the
chief minister. "The language you used in the cabinet meeting indicated
that you have lost trust in me. So you must resign," it said. Within
minutes, a shellshocked Vyas resigned and is still licking his wounds.
In the Pandya case, the chief minister managed to kill more birds than
one by promoting Barot. When the BJP lost miserably to the Congress in
last September's panchayat and municipal corporation polls—the first
indication of the BJP's downslide in the saffron state since 1990—the
party decided to do a post-mortem of the defeat at the behest of the central
command. Patel prevailed over the Sangh Parivar-controlled state BJP organisation
to entrust the job to Barot. The report he submitted in December gave
a clean chit to Patel, saying the defeat was largely because the party
had failed to project the "many good jobs that the Keshubhai Government
had done for the people". Patel now hopes to get useful anti-Modi
tips from Barot, a common foe. Keeping Barot in tow, Patel also knows,
would give the impression that he has come out of the Parivar straightjacket.
Much of the chief minister's strategy is based on the tina factor within
the party. It is no coincidence that party leaders of the Ahmedabad region—Pandya,
Barot, Power Minister Kaushik Patel and former health minister and senior
leader Ashok Bhattare—are a divided lot. By keping them at loggerheads,
Patel knows there can be no serious threat to his position. Also the BJP's
political nerve centre would remain in his hometown Rajkot.
It's been six months since Barot's report came out but Patel is yet to
carry out the much-talked about reshuffle within the government. It suits
him that power remains concentrated in his hands. Dissidents could be
taken care of with the promise of a reshuffle. It's the same dangle-the-carrot
policy which has prevented Patel from filling the chairmanships of over
a dozen government corporations and boards.
As Patel's craftiness is becoming more and more pronounced, he has also
begun to ride roughshod. When he snatched the information portfolio from
Pandya for instance, the state party leadership came to know about it
only after the official announcement. It was an arbitrary move with none
of the collective decision-making that marks the Sangh Parivar's style
of functioning. On another occasion, a senior minister, close to Union
Home Minister L.K. Advani, was found leaking infromation about cabinet
deliberations to a journalist. He was told in no uncertain terms that
he either stayed within his limits or out of the ministry.
For a chief minister who has been under tremendous public pressure following
repeated natural calamities in the state—ever since Patel took over
in March 1998, there have been three major droughts, not to mention the
January 26 earthquake—the thought that he can get his way around
within the government and the party is comforting for Patel. But he should
know that playing games within the party and government won't get him
far. It's the shrewdness in the affairs of state that will eventually
matter.
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