Rot within

Ram Janam Sharma, BJP candidate for Vikram Assembly constituency in Bihar, protesting with his supporters outside the party office against the apparent decision to replace him with sitting MLA Anil Kumar following the resignation of State BJP president C.P. Thakur.-RAJEET KUMAR

Sangh Parivar activists themselves feel that the BJP has been losing its claim to being a party with a difference.

A FEW days before the October dissident crisis in Karnataka hit the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), H.S. Shankaralinge Gowda, a four-time BJP legislator in the State Assembly, made a scathing comment about the party: Only lafangeys [loafers], thieves, liars, looters and land-grabbers have a place in this party, not honest workers. Gowda is known for the theatrics he employs in political campaigns, and this time he was obviously miffed by Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa's explanation about the difficulties in accommodating him in the Ministry. Even so, these were strong words by one who has been associated with the party for nearly two decades.

A veteran Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) activist from Lucknow is of the view that though the comment may sound too crude and severe, in many ways it bears out the state of affairs in the party. Speaking about the time when the BJP was formed three decades ago with Atal Bihari Vajpayee as its president, he said nobody would have imagined then that the saffron party would have provoked such a comment, and that too from a State-level leader who has had a long innings with it. He went on to recount the happenings in the December 1980 inaugural conference of the BJP in Bombay (now Mumbai), where Vajpayee suggested the coinage of party with a difference in response to eminent jurist M.C. Chagla's appreciation of the Sangh Parivar and its political arm. Chagla addressed the conference and said that though he was not a member of the party or a delegate at the conference, he admired the discipline, honesty and dedication of Sangh Parivar and BJP workers. He also shared his certainty that the BJP would be the party to correct the corrupt practices of the Congress, then led by Indira Gandhi, the RSS activist said.

According to him, Vajpayee responded to Chagla and affirmed that the BJP was not like the Congress, which was the abode of black marketeers, smugglers and other lawbreakers. He vouchsafed that the BJP was here to showcase a new political culture, a new style of functioning and a new method of organisation. But three decades later, the followers of the saffron party themselves are repudiating Vajpayee's famous words, he said.

A number of those associated with different organisations in the Hindutva combine at various levels agree that the BJP has been losing its claim to being a party with a difference for quite some time, but recent events in the party across the country mark an all-time low in terms of discipline, integrity and credibility. The developments in Karnataka and Jharkhand were central to this degradation, many of them told Frontline, but added that the kind of internal tussle, nepotism and revolt that marked the selection of candidates for the Bihar Assembly elections also pointed towards the malady of political, moral and organisational degeneration.

The developments in Karnataka and Jharkhand over the past two months, marked by the survival and the return of BJP State governments, are rated as success stories in realpolitik terms. But the question doing the rounds among observers and, more importantly, Sangh Parivar activists is about the political, moral and ethical costs the party has had to pay for these gains.

The Yeddyurappa government's latest crisis has been a continuation of the tumultuous two and a half years it spent in office, marked all along by charges of rampant corruption, land-grabbing and illegal mining promoted by Ministers themselves or their close relatives. In fact, the October dissident crisis is considered to be the direct fallout of the influence that different miners' lobbies have managed to gain within the party and the consequent race for power and influence that some MLAs initiated at the behest of their corporate controllers.

Vested interests

In Jharkhand, the party returned to power in September with Arjun Munda as Chief Minister, thanks to some clever manoeuvring with the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and some other local parties, but that by itself has created such a stink that the whole inner-party machinery is rancid. Here too, it has been alleged, the manoeuvres of the party were essentially made following the diktats of powerful corporate lobbies involved in business and industrial operations ranging from mining, power generation, real estate and infrastructure development.

The allegations have been raised not only by rival parties such as the Congress but also by several leaders of the Sangh Parivar, including the RSS and the BJP.

Significantly, vested interests and corporate operators dictating the political course of the BJP State units reportedly draw sustenance from powerful persons in the national leadership of the party. In Jharkhand, the name of the Nagpur-based businessman Ajay Kumar Sanchetti has been doing the rounds as the one who played a major role in helping the BJP strike the deal with the JMM and other parties. The business interests and connections of Sanchetti are well known. He runs a company called SMS Infrastructure Ltd, which is involved in the construction of highways and has business interests in the power sector. The company collaborates with many other big corporate companies too. It is said that Sanchetti and his associates led the negotiations on behalf of the BJP.

Incidentally, Sanchetti has BJP national president Nitin Gadkari as a close friend and benefactor. The businessman was recently made a permanent invitee to the party's National Executive by Gadkari. The Jharkhand operations carried out by Sanchetti were reportedly opposed by a number of leaders in the BJP, including former Deputy Prime Minister Lal Krishna Advani and current Opposition leader in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj. But their objections were apparently overruled by the party president.

The pressure groups led by the Sushma Swaraj-Arun Jaitley duo, with the active blessings of Advani, had projected former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha as Chief Minister, but Munda was reportedly more acceptable to the corporate biggies. Munda's candidature was supported by Gadkari and former BJP president Rajnath Singh, who is said to be working in tandem with Gadkari these days.

But then many of the BJP leaders who opposed the skulduggery in Jharkhand are themselves supporters of elements that have a similar style of functioning in other places. The open blessings and support given by Sushma Swaraj to Karnataka BJP leaders such as G. Karunakara Reddy and G. Janardhana Reddy, who head a powerful mining lobby in South India, is a striking case in point.

Bihar imbroglio

The BJP is beset with similar problems in other States, such as Bihar and Uttarakhand, where it is in power but on a relatively small scale. The recent resignation of Dr C.P. Thakur, president of the party's Bihar State unit, did come as a major embarrassment to it. Thakur was unhappy with the party's decision to allot the Digha Assembly seat to coalition partner Janata Dal (United). He had wanted the seat to be in the BJP list so that he could field his son Vivek Thakur. He withdrew his resignation two days later following discussions with Gadkari in Delhi, but by all indications, only after getting assurances that Vivek would be nominated to the Bihar Legislative Council at the earliest. Clearly, the veteran leader has managed to have his way and advance his family's political interests.

Ironically, all this promotion of corporate and vested interests as well as open acceptance of the culture of political and organisational nepotism is happening under a leadership that apparently has a specific mandate to clean up the saffron party's political and organisational machinery. The general impression when Gadkari was asked to take over from Rajnath Singh in December 2009 was that the RSS had elevated the relatively younger leader to the top position as part of a long-term strategy to reorient the BJP and bring it on track with the Sangh Parivar's cherished ideals and the practical plans it has for its political arm.

The seniority of many a leader was overlooked to anoint Gadkari, and this process was taken forward by none other than Mohan Bhagwat, sarsanghchalak of the RSS. Central to this promotion, point out many insiders, was a mandate to implement a crucial political-organisational document prepared by the Sangh Parivar as early as June 2004. Said the veteran activist from Lucknow: Initially Rajnath Singh was entrusted with the task of implementing the document, but since he failed the responsibility came to Gadkari.

The 42-page document, titled Tasks Ahead: Immediate and Long-Term, was presented at the National Executive of the BJP held between June 22 and 24, 2004, in Mumbai. It stated: During the period of the party's phenomenal growth since the late 1980s, many shortcomings have surfaced in the organisation. These are inconsistent with our party's ideals and objectives, with our distinctive ideology, and also with our guiding organisational principles and canons. The document said that individualism, lack of consultation and coordination, and absence of camaraderie are taking root, diluting the effectiveness of the party's activities.

Another point it stressed was the rapidly gathering impression that acts of indiscipline will be condoned and that even serious cases of anti-party activities will be overlooked. It also pointed out that earlier, the common people admired the BJP as a party of disciplined leaders and cadre and this was something that even our ideological and political adversaries admitted.

Having listed some of the problems faced by the party thus, the document went on to give guidelines on how to correct these aberrations, and specifically listed tasks on four fronts, namely ideological, organisational, legislative and governance-related. On ideology, the document stated that the BJP is part of a wider movement guided by the ideology of nationalism and that it should not be defensive or apologetic about projecting a distinctive ideological identity as well as about its relationship with other nationalist organisations, which obviously meant the RSS. Tasks listed under organisational had 20 specific headings. These emphasised the need for collective leadership, cooperation and communication between top leaders, commitment and accountability to party as opposed to individuals, and the need to stem indiscipline at all costs.

But according to the Lucknow-based RSS activist, the developments of the past two months in the party, especially in Karnataka and Jharkhand, suggest that Gadkari is following the Rajnath Singh route and has not been able to give sufficient attention to these vital tasks. His attention too seems to be on making realpolitik gains and proving his dominant position over other senior leaders, he said.

Incidentally, Gadkari's first foray into the realm of realpolitik failed when the JMM ditched the BJP after forming a government with its leader Shibu Soren as Chief Minister. Three months later, Gadkari did win over the JMM again and made it accept the BJP as the main partner in the Jharkhand government, registering a significant victory. But, as is evident, it cost him his reputation as a clean leader.

As things stand now, Gadkari and his supporters are happy that the ascent of the Munda government marks a victory for the BJP president in his battles for political survival, especially the ones within the party against leaders with greater experience in Delhi such as Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj. Ironically, the RSS leadership too is reportedly happy with these realpolitik initiatives. Their larger view seems to be that Gadkari can finally wield a strong baton of discipline once he has upstaged his adversaries at their own game. It remains to be seen how far this premise holds or how strong its basis is.